Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Tesco replaces its Avios-earning gift card promo with …. the same thing

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If you didn’t see Shopper Points yesterday, you won’t know that Tesco has been acting oddly.

We mentioned last week that Sunday was the last day to earn 150 Clubcard points when spending £50 on gift cards at Tesco.

This very generous deal – which allowed you to pay for a lot of your non-Tesco spending using gift cards bought in Tesco – was rarely promoted and had run for around three years.  Given that these transferred into 360 Avios or 375 Virgin Flying Club miles, it was a good opportunity to pick up some miles.  Then, out of the blue, Tesco added an expiry date to the gift card promotion.

gift cards 15 off 24th april

Cue a lot of panic buying of gift cards ….

And what did Tesco replace the offer with?

“Get 75 Clubcard points when spending £25 on gift cards.”

However this offer is for a three week period only.

The offer is cumulative.  This means you earn 75 Clubcard points when spending £25, 150 Clubcard points when spending £50, 225 Clubcard points when spending £75 and so on.

This offer ends on 16th October – but you never know, Tesco might just extend it or change the amount of Clubcard points yet again ……

Other Avios / Virgin via Clubcard deals still running

There a number of interesting Tesco promotions running at the moment which allow you to earn bonus Clubcard points and thus additional Avios or Virgin Atlantic miles.

The links below take to the relevant Shopper Points article.

4,800 Avios or 5,000 Virgin miles (via 2,000 Clubcard points) with selected Tesco Gift Experiences

2,400 Avios or 2,500 Virgin miles (via 1,000 Clubcard points) for spending £50 on Fisher-Price toys

240 Avios or 250 Virgin miles (via 100 Clubcard points) for FREE for giving Tesco Bank your insurance renewal dates

240 Avios or 250 Virgin miles (via 100 Clubcard points) for every Epson printer ink cartridge you buy (ends tomorrow)

240 Avios or 250 Virgin miles (via 100 Clubcard points) with 25 prints from Tesco Photo

240 Avios or 250 Virgin miles (via 100 Clubcard points) for every HP printer ink cartridge or pack of photo paper (ends tomorrow)

240 Avios or 250 Virgin miles (via 100 Clubcard points) for every Canon printer ink cartridge you buy (ends tomorrow)


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 (83)

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

  • Will Squires says:

    John Lewis gift cards in the Rugeley branch too, and Starbucks ones are back after a long absense, £20 value this time round.

    • Rob says:

      If JL / Waitrose turn up then I’m laughing!

      • Gavin says:

        Can JL be used in Waitrose?

        • harry1 says:

          yes

          actually I wonder if Tesco have found an elegant way around selling gcs branded ‘Waitrose’? It doesn’t matter so much with M&S (ie clothes as well) but Waitrose is nothing but a rival supermarket.

          Maybe the gcs just say ‘John Lewis’ but all the cards I have seen elsewhere say both names.

      • Will Squires says:

        Definitely just John Lewis branded.

        Argos/Homebase used to do a joint giftcard (when they were both part of Home Retail Group) but Argos couldn’t take Homebase solus ones and vice versa.

        I guess we’ll only know for sure when someone gives it a try…!

      • Barry says:

        Just bought a Tesco JL gift card – took it home so I could get a magnifying glass to read T&C’s – and guess what; can be used at Waitrose or JL

  • Kerry says:

    A word of caution for people … I have to purchase a new fridge/freezer and washing machine … got £1,200 worth of Currys gift cards from Tesco (£50 per card) – placed an order online via BA 365 shop … only to discover that Currys web site will only accept a total of 5 gift cards per transaction! Net result is that I had to go to my nearest store and place the order there as the items I wanted couldn’t be reserved for collection from store (so that I could pay in store). Still, at least I got the Clubcard points plus 1.5 Avios for using Amex to purchase them! In retrospect I think I could have got a digital card for the total amount – not sure how that works though!

    • TGLoyalty says:

      just to clarify i don’t mean 3 per trip just the SA needs to load 3x the GC at a time on to the new gift card

    • Mr Dee says:

      Alternatively buying something expensive and then asking them to refund, it will go onto 1 gift card

    • Genghis says:

      I’m sure I mentioned this just the other day…

    • Jon says:

      I had the same problem at Currys. They informed me I could only use 3 gift cards per purchase. It doesn’t state that anywhere on the gift card t&cs I could see. Luckily the sales assistant knew how to get around it – i.e. Buy a new gift card with three existing, then buy another combining the first new card with 2 other, etc, etc, until all my £25s were combined into 3 cards that could then be used to make the purchase!!

  • Chelseafi says:

    Does anyone know if the Spotify GC work on accounts, my son pays (or should I say I do) £5 a month with half price students Spotify premium, could I load the account with £25 to cover next 5 monthly DD?

    • bryan says:

      Yes you can do that. I loaded my account with £50 and it just moves your subscription end date back a month.

    • Mr Dee says:

      No it doesn’t work for student discounted subscriptions only people paying the full price.

  • Nick_C says:

    I can presumably buy £25 GCs for £23.75 using my TSB contactless debit cards (if I buy them one at a time)?

  • kevin says:

    anyone know if it’s possible to pay an hmrc tax bill with my tesco credit card AND get clubcard points from Tesco?

    Problem is that I am not buying a good or service, which may be the criteria required for clubcard points.

    • Mr Dee says:

      I would assume yes!

    • Rob says:

      I think HMRC is NOT treated as financial services.

      • kevin says:

        thanks Raffles.

        paying HMRC like paying a debt, so not a purchase, so (maybe) no clubcard points. I can’t find any definite answer through online searches. I did phone Tesco Bank. they were vague but eventually said paying HMRC wouldn’t qualify.

        I’m guessing they don’t have any firm rules about it. might just have to try it and see what happens. or test it out by paying a small amount of the tax first.

  • harry1 says:

    sure

  • Nick says:

    Sorry but O:T. Harry, do you know of any holiday extra’s tricks around at the moment? I need to book meet and greet for Birmingham airport for mid Oct. I know you have had tricks before.

    Thanks,
    Nick.

    • harry111 says:

      you have until 2 Oct to register for the Amex HEX 15% statement credit

      this combines with any other discount you can find

      best I got was moneysavingexpert com /travel /cheap-airport-parking

      2 weeks, ACE M&G, B’ham mid Oct, 20% discount, £82 – but you could leave it hanging for an hour, go back with same search & see if discount increases to 30% (as it often does with HEX)

      use the MSE link, go to payments, don’t pay, drop your booking into Amex link, same price, pay, you get discounted price & the 15% statement credit

      • Nick says:

        Thanks harry111. You’ve changed your name again????

        • harry1 says:

          not really – some other dude was posting as harry – then Wordpress was playing up

          but if that other guy wants harry I can be harry1 for now

          • Nick says:

            I did see something on another post so I did have some idea. harry1 sounds good to me. Thanks for your help.

          • Genghis says:

            Even if you were both called harry, I think we could tell you apart by your discernible writing style.

  • Mark says:

    Your image has a BHS card in it- you may want to find a new one.

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