How to earn 7 Avios per £1 shopping at Waitrose, John Lewis and Amazon

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As I wrote last week, Tesco has extended its gift card promotion for another few weeks. Until 16th October, you will receive 75 Clubcard points – which convert into 180 Avios or 187 Virgin Flying Club miles – for every £25 you spend on third party gift cards at Tesco.

These purchases can be made either in-store or via the Tesco online gift card shop.

This extension coincides with a major change in Tesco gift card policy. It is now stocking John Lewis / Waitrose and Amazon gift cards.

Avios wing 6

Here are a couple of things you need to know:

You cannot buy Amazon or John Lewis gift cards from the Tesco online gift card store – only in person, in-store

The John Lewis / Waitrose cards are only branded as John Lewis as you can see from the picture. However, the small print on the back confirms that they can be used in Waitrose. They can also be used at johnlewis.com.

Amazon gift cards do not need to be used for a specific purchase. You can add them to your Amazon account as a credit balance and the money sits there until you next buy something. Future purchases are deducted from your credit balance first with any balance charged to a credit card.

In order to add Amazon gift cards to your Amazon account, you need to visit this page of the Amazon website and input the gift card number.

I imagine that Amazon and John Lewis gift cards will remain a permanent part of the Tesco gift card range. However, we cannot be certain that Tesco will continue to offer 75 bonus Clubcard points per £25 spent on gift cards after 16th October.

If you are a heavy Waitrose, John Lewis or Amazon shopper, it is worth picking up whatever gift cards you can from Tesco over the next few weeks.

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:

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

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

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.)

Category

Tesco Clubcard

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

rams1981 says:

3 Oct3 October 11:55

did not know the esso offer could be used to buy gift cards. which ones do they have except tescos?
- Peter K says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 12:11
  
  It was for Essos linked to Tescos I think. None of the Essos near me had any gift cards.
- mark2 says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 15:07
  
  It varies enormously, usually not much even Tesco gift cards. I cleaned out my local after about 20 and they were so old some were welded to the cards.
  I hope they get some more ready for the next offer!
James says:

3 Oct3 October 13:47

You can run into all sorts of unexpected problems with Tesco Club Card Points/Giftcards.

Back in the 3V days i forgot my club card one day, after presenting the receipt at a later date at a Esso/Tesco Express in Honeypot Lane, Stanmore, the member of staff told me a “lie” and said that only the manager could authorise adding such a large number of Club Card Points 150 x 2!

I did explain to him the actual value was VERY small but he was just to suspicious of the large volume – this is what you will find, some staff are just suspicious of anything slightly out of the ordinary, you will get to recognise the type.

I emailed Tesco who later contacted me to say the manager of the store would like to call me to apologise.
nate1309 says:

3 Oct3 October 14:16

O/T – Tesco PayQwiq – I know some peoples weren’t posting, I just checked my statement online and I have the full 500 point bonus added this week, from 5 separate sub £2 (one sub 50p) transactions carried out back to back within second of one another at the self service til (4 weeks ago). Hope others are also getting theirs posted. Thanks again Rob for pointing these deals out. I was lucky as I don’t live in an area that has it up and running yet but popped to the Tesco Express 2 mins from Heathrow prior to a flight.
- Andrew says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 15:29
  
  PayQwik was hopeless.
  
  Sadly whilst all my banking Apps work, PayQwik doesn’t approve of the Cyanogen version of Android on my Wileyfox.
  - Dave says:
    
    3 Oct3 October 21:48
    
    The PayQwik app works fine for me, even running the app on my BlackBerry with a square screen!
- Liz says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 16:55
  
  We were in Edinburgh at the weekend so we did 2x 5 Payqwiq transactions back to back across 2 accounts/phones – hopefully the 1000 pts will post soon.
  - nate1309 says:
    
    3 Oct3 October 17:05
    
    I have not checked my wife’s account but she did hers straight after me for the same small amounts so should work. Hope yours do to.
  - Alan says:
    
    3 Oct3 October 19:23
    
    I wish they’d roll these tills out to Dundee – not so much for Payqwiq but these more modern tills also support contactless payment and I suspect would also allow Clubcards to be scanned off the phone too!
    - TGLoyalty says:
      
      3 Oct3 October 20:51
      
      Used in London at the weekend have to say really quick way of shopping at Tesco, would be even better if it could be added to my apple wallet
- Gin and Tonic Please says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 21:07
  
  Got all 5 of mine. And for each one I only bought a banana for breakfast. That’s 18p per transaction.
- Jeff says:
  
  4 Oct4 October 13:51
  
  Yes, thank you Rob for this – also got my 500 PayQwiq bonus this week for 5 purchases. seems to work well.
mark2 says:

3 Oct3 October 15:17

slightly OT re Waitrose customer service.
My sister ordered a load of their catering for a party that she was holding. They were two hours late (which did not actually matter much). They gave her a full refund and paid for her and her husband to go out for a meal and then gave her an enormous bouquet.
CV3V says:

3 Oct3 October 15:55

The thing about the gift card promo is that it’s no better (or worse) than the corporate discount schemes out there. On one employee scheme I can see that if a buy gift cards for the following retailers what discount I will be given:

Tesco Gift card – 4% (Perhaps I can buy these, to then go buy Amazon gift cards and combine discounts?)
M&S – 6%
Currys – 4%
Harrods(!) – 5%
Goldsmiths – 10%

Point being, there are already discount schemes out there for gift card purchases, so Tesco’s points deal is just a different offer, perhaps it can run and run.
- Mr Dee says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 17:07
  
  Whats the name of the scheme?
  - CV3V says:
    
    3 Oct3 October 21:48
    
    2 options available to me:
    
    BUPA membership gives access to the xexec scheme
    i also have access to interserve perks through a colleague
    
    In both cases it is a discount given, not cash back. A 15% discount just finished on Goldsmiths, this was good as it allowed you to buy gift cards at a discount then go to the shop and haggle on the price and then pay with gift cards.
    - Frenske says:
      
      3 Oct3 October 22:34
      
      Buba membership or Buba employee?
    - Mr Dee says:
      
      3 Oct3 October 22:34
      
      Can I signup to BUPA and gain access to this scheme?
- mark2 says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 17:18
  
  Yes but:
  you have to be eligible for the scheme;
  you have to pay postage unless the card is re-loadable;
  you have to pay surcharge for vis/mastercard and cannot use Amex.
  
  But it is purely a matter of personal preference, until 16th October.
Andrew says:

3 Oct3 October 16:09

I fully stocked up with GiftCards prior to the end of Diamond Club.

I did have an after-thought though. With Diamond Club closed on 30th September, should I have bought a few expensive items in M&S and returned them post-statement production?

Just need some reassurance that that wouldn’t have worked…
- Mr Dee says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 22:38
  
  You could have brought and returned many items not just from M&S but whether it would be worth the hassle is another matter!
danksy says:

3 Oct3 October 16:31

Just bought 6*£50 next vouchers and created chaos when one of the cards didn’t activate … the old biddy on the tills had no idea what to do!
- Mr Dee says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 16:47
  
  She needed her Tesco employee software updating hehe
Mr Dee says:

3 Oct3 October 16:45

Sorry to hear the issues you faced, sounds like most of the employees at Tesco need their software updating to the 2016 version from the 1990s version where spending more than £100 at a supermarket was unheard of!

Probably best off buying the gift cards in smaller amounts to avoid too much hassle.
- Dave G says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 17:48
  
  I think I’ll stick to one gift card at a time in future, including the 9 £50 gift card I have left. I’ll do one £50 Amazon gift card per £50 Tesco gift card. That should be simple enough!