Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

25% bonus on TopCashback transfers to Avios – and get 625 Avios when you join for free

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TopCashback is a site which allows you to earn a small amount of cashback from your day to day shopping by clicking through to participating online shops from its site.

It is very similar to Quidco if you are a member of that site.  British Airways and Virgin have their own shopping portals as well, except that you earn miles instead of cash.

When Tesco Clubcard pulled out of their partnership with TopCashback recently, there was much gnashing of teeth.  Converting your cashback from your internet shopping to Clubcard meant that you were effectively buying Avios for 0.4p each.

TopCashback 350

When the Tesco deal ended, you could still transfer your TopCashback cashback directly to Avios points.  It wasn’t very attractive, however, because you were effectively paying 1p per Avios point.  This is more than I am willing to pay unless I have a definite use for them.

On Friday, TopCashback launched a 25% bonus for converting TopCashback money into Avios points.  I am assuming that this is a permanent offer.  I am also assuming that British Airways is funding it in an attempt to make up the loss of revenue from people who converted from TCB to Tesco to Avios.

For every £1 of cashback you transfer to Avios, you will now receive 125 points.  This means that you are paying 0.8p per point.

0.8p is a lot more interesting to me than 1p.  My threshold for doing anything to gain Avios points is that the points must cost less than 0.75p.  I know I can hardly fail to be better off when I redeem.

Of course, my target of 0.75p is lower than the 0.8p you pay here.  However, I don’t need to do anything apart from telling TCB to send my cash to British Airways instead of my bank account.  It’s not as if I will be eBaying a pile of LEGO to end up with points for 0.8p …..

TopCashback is therefore officially ‘back in the game’ as a way of accumulating Avios points efficiently.  All of those readers who said that were switching to Quidco (‘more reliable’) for their cashback may decide to change their minds …..

625 Avios points for joining TopCashback

Until 10am on 3rd October, you can get 625 Avios points when you join TopCashback via a referral link.  This is a great opportunity to pick up some easy points.

You can join TopCashback by using this link.

Until 3rd October – when you use our referral link – you will receive £5 into your TopCashback account as a bonus when you have earned £10 in cashback.  This will convert into 625 Avios with the new ‘25% transfer bonus’.

If you sign up using the general link on the TCB website then you will not receive the £5 bonus.  It is only valid if you are referred by a friend.

There are two membership levels at TopCashback – a FREE version and a £5 annual fee version. The £5 level pays slightly higher cashback and has improved customer service if you have any problems.  To be honest, I would start at the free level until you have decided that you like the site.  You will need to change your account settings once you have signed up to move yourself onto the free version.

We also receive a bonus for referring you which helps keep Head for Points ticking over.

You may NOT see this offer advertised on the TopCashback site.  However, you will definitely get your points as long as you use a refer-a-friend link to join.

topcashback-avios

How do I receive my 625 Avios points?

The way this works is a little complex.  You need to earn £10 in cashback before you receive the £5 but there is NO TIME LIMIT on this.

Once you have earned £10 commission, £5 will be placed in your TopCashback account.  If you transfer this to Avios, you will receive 625 points.  You are also free to withdraw it as cash.

What next?

If you are not already a TopCashback member, you should open a TopCashback account now and use it as the starting point for your day-to-day online shopping.

If you are already a member, consider referring your partner or adult children.  Do not open a second account for yourself as that is against TCB rules.

You can start earning cashback immediately through some of their ‘free money’ offers.  For example, Confused.com pays £2.40 for getting a free car insurance quote.  Money from confused.com cannot be moved to Avios (BA blocks some merchants who conflict with its own partners) but does count towards your £10 for triggering the £5 bonus.

Conclusion

As long as the new ‘25% bonus on transfers to Avios’ is permanent – and there is no sign that it isn’t – TopCashback is a good way of picking up an unlimited amount of Avios points for 0.8p.  You obviously need to generate enough cashback in the first place but there are plenty of high paying offers on products such as home and car insurance.

If you currently use Quidco then you should move across to TCB, at least until you have earned enough to trigger the 625 Avios bonus.

Our refer a friend link is here.  The deadline to sign up and receive the £5 bonus is 3rd October.


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 (63)

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

  • roger says:

    +1
    I have had many unpaid CB across both sites; so cannot recommend one over other.

  • harry says:

    same here

  • Genghis says:

    +1. A bird in the hand and all that…

    • Genghis says:

      But still go through the CB site. I note on my spreadsheet tracker if a coupon was used and if the CB is then declined then fair enough.

  • Tracy says:

    O/T Have the virgin credit card bonuses dropped back to basic miles? Thought the increased bonuses were available to end of October, was going to apply today….

    • Tracy says:

      Just noticed basic miles through Virgin Atlantic website but increased miles through MBNA website….

      • Genghis says:

        No bonus showing for me on that link

        • Tracy says:

          Not showing for me either

          • RW says:

            ” 18,500 bonus miles will be credited to your Flying Club account after your first card purchase, providing you use either of your cards within 90 days of your account opening and supply your Flying Club membership number to MBNA. A further 6,500 bonus miles will be credited to your account when you apply by 31 October 2016 and spend £3,000 on either card in the first 90 days of your account opening and supply your Flying Club membership number. “

          • Genghis says:

            Strange. For me it says under “The Small Print”
            “1. 18,500 bonus miles will be credited to your Flying Club account after your first card purchase, providing you use either of your cards within 90 days of your account opening and supply your Flying Club membership number to MBNA. Please allow six to eight weeks for bonus miles to be added to your account. Bonus miles are not awarded on balance transfers, money transfers or cash advances”
            I applied a couple of weeks ago anyway…

          • Jonathan says:

            It seems the mobile site hasn’t been updated showing th normal rate. The full desktop site shows 25k

          • h1tvd says:

            OK, If I click the link on my mobile 18500 miles, If I click the link on desktop 25000 miles, thanks for the help guys, will apply on desktop just to be sure lol

        • Tracy says:

          So if I apply through MBNA I will get the additional miles but if I apply through Virgin Atlantic I won’t??

          • roger says:

            I can see 10k miles for free white card and 25k miles bonus offer for black vrigin card.

          • Tracy says:

            The link you posted only showing 18500 for me, very strange……I am on my mobile though, will check desktop

  • LJVacamas says:

    I only value Avios at £6/1000 so still struggling here even with a 25% bonus.

    • Genghis says:

      How come your valuation is so low?

      • Mike says:

        My thoughts too – why so low ?

        • Rob says:

          I have done redemptions recently where I have got as little as 0.8p recently so refusing to pay more than 0.6p is not reasonable. Someone who travels alone and doesn’t use the 241 voucher would be getting under 1p on Club World if they used an ex-Europe flight on another airline as the price comparator.

          • Brian says:

            Even if you factor in the cost of getting to the European city, plus all the other incidental costs? (Not to mention the added time and hassle…)

          • Rob says:

            I used to do it before I met the Mrs. Why not? It was actually fun.

            Would I do it now with a family of 4 and all the luggage? Unlikely.

          • Alex W says:

            According to BA our flights to NYC in F for Christmas are now priced at £21k, making our 241 redemption about 15p per Avios! Somewhat unrealistic I think!

        • LJVacamas says:

          Mainly based on using economy from Glasgow/regional. Probably better value from London and/or higher cabin class. Then again BA vastly increased number of Avios for those classes.

  • Genghis says:

    Even after Hilton pulled out?

  • Genghis says:

    Is this the point where Raffles plugs his IHG double base points link? 😉

  • Brian says:

    That IS worth knowing! :))

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