Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Is it Grand Theft? Avios for 0.4p each, possibly 0.27p

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If you go down to your local Tesco (it probably needs to be a large Tesco, a Tesco Extra for safety), you can take part in a fantastic offer that lets you pick up Avios airmiles for just 0.4p each. This could drop to as little as 0.27p each with a Tesco conversion bonus.

The product involved is a video game, Grand Theft Auto V. Ironically, this is a video game that is not even released yet.

Grand Theft Auto V is expected to be a blockbuster, with copies hard to find. Tesco is therefore offering customers the chance to pre-order a copy for £5. You will receive a £5 voucher to redeem against our copy of the game on release, plus a free poster.

Here is the amazing bit. Tesco is offering 500 bonus Tesco Clubcard points with every pre-order.

This means that, for just £5, you will receive 1,200 Avios or 1,250 Virgin Flying Club miles. If there is another 50 per cent conversion bonus from Tesco to BA at some point, you would get 1,800 Avios for £5, just 0.27p each.

This is how it works. A participating Tesco will have a pile of GTAV empty boxes in the video games area, with posters alongside. Take a box or two and pay your £5 per box. Points go onto your receipt immediately.

It is important to understand that you are NOT obliged to buy a copy of the game when it eventually comes out.

Now, the question is: how many can you buy? One certainly OK, two probably. But 5? 10?

Tesco has a track record of taking points away from people who buy more of a product on special offer than they consider ‘normal’. For a video game, that number could be quite low. Doing more than two copies per Clubcard may be risky, in my view – but it is up to you.

The offer runs to November 18th. As the empty boxes are presumably put back on display to be sold again, there shouldn’t be an availability issue.


How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

Nectar American Express

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

American Express Platinum card Amex

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express card

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Comments (28)

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

  • Rda says:

    I purchased 8 copies, worth the risk IMO

    Points were on the receipt as soon as I paid

    Double supermarket points on amex too

  • ups says:

    Just so I get it right – you pay the £5 and get a voucher for £5 which will fully pay for the game? If you don’t want to buy the game when it comes out, what happens to the voucher?

    • Raffles says:

      The voucher doesn’t fully pay for the game, it just gets you £5 off and guarantees you a copy on the day of release. You could possibly sell it on ebay for a pound or two, given it gets you £5 off the game. If you don’t understand the games market, you won’t understand the importance to hard core gamers of getting it on the day of release, ahead of their mates – hence offers like this. (HMV will probably open its shops at midnight to sell copies, for eg. Such is the demand.)

  • flibbly says:

    As someone who has no interest in the game, it seems to me that I can spend £5 to buy 505 clubcard points (500 bonus plus 5 for the spend), which even if I didn’t want the Avios would be worth £5.05 in Tesco vouchers anyway.

    • pakster says:

      This is true. I might buy 2 just to use in the next clubcard exchange as I’m not avios-hungry right now.

  • tommyl78m says:

    I note some people are not heeding Raffles “don’t go overboard” advice: http://s14.postimage.org/8en62bn35/receipts.jpg

    I found that pic on the internet, it is not my work. I have a feeling that Tesco may invoke some sort of small print for this particular case…

  • Peter says:

    I’d be wary, people on hotukdeals claiming you only get the points when purchasing the game (not sure about that one) and that someone is claiming they’ve already been told by tesco their clubcard order is cancelled. Personally I wouldn’t buy more than 2

    • Raffles says:

      The first part is clearly wrong as the picture of the receipts in the other comment shows!

      • mrtibbs1999 says:

        Hi Raffles I need to confess, I ordered a few printers from your post the other day, even getting staff discount. Do you have nay knowledge of if and when they decide to cancel the poiints as I know they are in my account now. Also there is an actual 30k per quarter limit so any above that do get cancelled as per the terms.

        • Raffles says:

          I doubt you will have much trouble with printer inks – they are a consumable after all. Ordering 10 inks looks a lot less like abuse than 10 copies of the same video game.

          • mrtibbs1999 says:

            I meant epson printers….I ordered 13! with my shopping that’ss be 30k points. When will they normally get cancelled? do you have any precedents

          • Raffles says:

            You might be OK with those. Very few people will have bulk bought those, possibly nobody except you. Most people don’t have the storage space or the willingness to ebay bulky items.

            What you need to do is keep a regular eye on your CC points total. Sign up for awardwallet if you don’t already have it, which automatically tracks all your balances in one click. Run an awardwallet update once a day to see what balances have moved. If they do take them away, you will at least know about it. You would then have the right to return the printers.

            Plenty of precedents of points being taken back if you scour the paidtoshop Tesco forums (which are not visible until your membership is approved).

  • mrtibbs1999 says:

    Thanks for the help, i was really worried. I can see why people wouldn’t risk it, but for nearly 100k avios I was pretty much moved to buy. I’ve set up an award wallet, so I will cross my fingers and hope.

  • pazza2000 says:

    I was greedy and purchased 8 on one clubcad today. No problem doing so, and the points are showing on the printed receipt. However I feel that I might have gambled too high on this one. I do not plan on buying anymore and have my fingers crossed i slip through the net.

  • Georgie says:

    I think eight is probably OK but it maybe better if you can split this over a couple of clubcards say your own and a partners, or if you have a Tesco credit card they can act as a separate clubcard as well. In the grand scheme of AVIOS and points collecting it is always best not to hack off Tesco if you can avoid it. The good thing is the points go on your receipt immediately.

    • by188b says:

      I bought 4 and paid at a self serve till, the vouchers didn’t print so the assistant refunded the transaction and put them through the customer service till. But it looks like 2 sets of 2000 went on. Kind of a result but I don’t want to be accused of overindulging of the juicy clubcard worms!

      • Jovan says:

        I got two through self service till and had to go through the same process of a refund in order to get the vouchers. But I only got 1k points once – lucky you.

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.