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Bits: 500 Accor points with wine, double Heathrow Rewards on fashion

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News in brief:

Earn 500 Le Club AccorHotels points from Laithwaites

There are few ways of earning Le Club AccorHotels points without staying in their hotels.  This is particularly frustrating if you just a few points short of another €40 discount voucher.

You can convert Finnair Plus points to Accor at the rate of 7:1, oddly.  As Finnair is an American Express Membership Rewards partner, this is a highly dilutive but possible route to boost your Accor balance.

This makes the new Accor tie-up with UK wine group Laithwaites more interesting than it would usually be.  Via this link, you can get a case of white, red or mixed wine, two Dartington crystal glasses, free delivery and 500 Le Club AccorHotels points.

The downside is that you are forcibly enrolled in the Laithwaite’s Wine Plan.  You will need to call them to un-enroll or you will find a fresh case of wine appearing on your doorstep every 12 weeks.

Double Heathrow Rewards points on fashion

If you’re heading through Heathrow over Easter – or indeed at any point until 30th April – Heathrow Rewards is offering double points on fashion and fashion accessory purchases over £250 in one transaction.

Remember that Heathrow Rewards points convert 1:1 into Avios, Virgin Flying Club, Lufthansa Miles & More, Etihad Guest or Emirates Skywards miles.  You would receive 2 miles per £1 spent via this offer.

Oddly for Heathrow Rewards, you must opt in to this promotion – it is not automatic.  This link takes you to the right page.

Participating stores are Bally, Burberry, Bottega Veneta, Case, Cath Kidston, Christian Dior, Gucci, Hackett of London, Harrods, John Lewis, Jack Wills, Kurt Geiger, Miu Miu, Mulberry, Paul Smith, Prada, Reiss, Rolling Luggage, Smythson, Sunglass Hut, Ted Baker and Zara.

Current Tesco deals for bonus Clubcard points

Finally, here is a summary of current Tesco promotions which offer bonus Clubcard points.

Click on the link to be taken to the relevant page on our sister site Shopper Points.  Remember that 1 Clubcard point converts to 2.4 Avios or 2.5 Virgin Flying Club miles.

Ends 30th July – 100 Clubcard points with Harry Potter & The Cursed Child

Ends 29th April – 4,000 Clubcard points with Tesco Home Insurance

Ends 27th April – 100 free Clubcard points when you make a MoneyGram transfer in-store

Ends 31st March – Quadruple Clubcard points with gift experiences

Ends 31st March – 500 Clubcard points when you pre-order Unchartered 4 for PS4

Ends 28th March – 250 Clubcard points with £29 DVD player

Ends 27th March – Get up to 20% off iTunes gift cards


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 (31)

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

  • harry says:

    1000 clubcard points on £100 wine
    XXFYFY

  • Steve R says:

    I got sent that code

    Only trouble is that it is for wine by the case, & T’s are doing 25% off 6 bottles in store

  • Gavin says:

    Accor autoconvert trick worked for me this morning direct into Iberia

    • Tilly71 says:

      Are you using Chrome or ie to redeem as when I last tried to do this it didn’t go anywhere.

      • Gavin says:

        I think I eventually set it up on my iPhone using Safari. Requires patience!

  • John says:

    Tesco direct also offering 500 or 1000 clubcard points on a range of “Beats by Dr Dre” headphones.

  • harry says:

    Bad news for Avios RFS Europe users if you’re tall.

    Just checked in for tomorrow (ie 24 hrs in advance) and exit seats are now £18, same as when you buy them in advance.

    I guessed they would get there in the end but this was free for us at Xmas out & back.

    • Gavin says:

      When I checked in for my flight with Aegean for tomorrow (cash HBO ticket) I had no issue getting the exit row free of charge. Their food and wine is better than BA (in J anyway, and very probably down the back as well)

      • harry says:

        BA 🙁

        Choose seat
        1.Select a passenger
        2.Choose an available seat Exit row seat £18
        Standard seat FREE

        • harry says:

          Which means I had to double check in case I screwed up 🙂 but no, it is £18. Tomorrow IS the 24th, right? lol

    • Genghis says:

      Even further evidence BA is moving towards LCC service will full service carrier prices.

      • Harry says:

        You can still get a free exit seat by asking at check in

        We got offered five times gbp250 to give up our seats on this flight and fly later, same thing happened last Xmas

        Sadly I didn’t,t even have to ask my wife to get an answer lol

        If it was just me I would have taken the grand

    • Alan says:

      Hadn’t realised they’d left them free on RFS (Gold so no charge anyway) – at least they haven’t gone down the route of making them like HBO tickets and not even allowing seat selection in advance for those with Bronze upwards!

  • harry says:

    OK got a reply to my APD query yesterday – if you remember, I emailed avios.com asking for the refund of APD incorrectly applied to my 2 sons 12-15 (after change in HMRC rules). Here is the answer:

    Dear harry
    Thanks for your email regarding your flights to somewhere in Europe. I’ve checked your
    booking and I can see that you’ve used your Avios to pay for your flight.

    When you’re a regular Avios collector, you’re eligible for our Reward
    Flight Saver when travelling within Europe. This means that you don’t pay
    the taxes on the flight, just £17.50 per flight sector. Avios then pays the
    full tax amount to the airline.

    When you book a long haul reward flight, you pay taxes, fees and charges,
    therefore APD would’ve been paid.

    Regarding your flight to somewhere in Europe, we wouldn’t refund the APD as you
    haven’t paid it on this flight.

    I hope this clarifies the matter for you. Thanks again for contacting us.

    Kind regards
    ***

    What do you reckon? RFS fee is clearly meant to cover APD and airport fees. Or do I stand a snowball’s chance and no point pursuing? For info: BAEC refund the APD in this instance, initially charging the same £17.50 per flight leg as avios.com.

    • harry says:

      First point, I guess, is that BAEC quotes that the £17.50 is part of the ‘Total Price (Including all taxes, fees, and carrier charges).’

      So avios.com are possibly incorrect to try to say that there is any difference between RFS flights (paying all taxes, fees, and carrier charges) and long haul reward flights (paying all taxes, fees, and carrier charges).

    • Rob says:

      Hmmm. If you book one-ways, as you know, you now pay the LOWER of £17.50 or the actual amount. This is why it is now usually cheaper, especially in CE, to book 2 x one-ways rather than a return.

      This does not appear to apply to return tickets – or perhaps it does and there are no examples. Given how steep the Heathrow departure fee is, you would struggle to find many routes where the combined taxes on a return were under £35.

      • harry says:

        I think that’s only via BAEC? Which is why it’s better to use them rather than avios.com, point noted from your earlier article though didn’t stop me booking this on avios.com, unfortunately. For my route, the difference is negligible. But the APD refund would have been automatic (from BAEC) rather than refused by avios.com.

        Point remains that I was charged (for the outward leg) £17.50, to include APD fees, and now thosefees are not payable. So I reckon I’m due a refund. Avios.com are just swallowing up my unpaid APD as extra income.

    • Kipto says:

      Wondered where you’d been. Welcome back Harry

    • Alan says:

      For LHR flights don’t passenger charges already cost most of the fee anyway? (part of the rubbish excuse BA gave for stopping free stopovers from the regions I believe)

  • Sussex bantam says:

    Got it – it was the apd I was interested in. Thanks Harry/raffles

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