Bits: TopCashback 25% bonus to Avios scrapped, Miles & More gift card deals – any good?

Links on Head for Points may pay us an affiliate commission. A list of partners is here.

News in brief:

No more 25% bonus on TopCashback transfers to Avios

Quietly TopCashback has withdrawn its 25% bonus when converting TopCashback cashback directly into Avios.

First launched in September 2016 with no expiry date, the 25% bonus with TopCashback for converting cashback into Avios came after Tesco Clubcard pulled their partnership with TCB.

Giving no mention of an end of this 25% bonus prior to the expiry date is especially annoying if you had been wanting to convert your paid cashback into Avios but simply hadn’t got around to doing it.

Converting TopCashback to Avios is still not a bad deal. You get 1.05 Avios for every 1p of cashback you convert, which is far cheaper than buying points directly from BA. It just isn’t as good as it was.

If you are not already a TCB member, you can sign up via our refer a friend link here.

TopCashback 350

Miles & More gift card deals – to be avoided?

Lufthansa’s Miles & More scheme has been sending out emails to their UK members promoting their new gift card redemptions, making it look like a great deal.

‘Did you know that you can get your favourite awards for 3,000 miles already?’, asks the email in badly translated English.

A look at the website shows that for 3,600 miles you can, for example, get a £10 Amazon voucher. Great.

That is the equivalent of 0.27p per mile! Considering the 1p value we give to 1 Lufthansa mile when used for premium flight redemptions, this is a deal to be avoided unless you have some miles heading rapidly towards expiry.

Category

British Airways and Avios, Lufthansa and Miles & More

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

Jay says:

8 Jan8 January 14:13

OT:
Closed my platinum account after reaching bonus (and MR transferred out). I now had to return one of the items I had bought with the card and get a refund. I have two issues:
1. How will I get the money back from amex?
2. the refund will tip me below the spend target (£1879 instead of the £2000 required), what will Amex do as I have already transferred the MR out?
3. will this put me in Amex bad books?
- the_real_a says:
  
  8 Jan8 January 14:45
  
  Easy – call up amex and they will either BACS the credit back to your direct debit account, or raise you a cheque.
  - the_real_a says:
    
    8 Jan8 January 14:47
    
    You wont lose your transferred points, and unless you make a habit of it AMEX will still be friends with you.
the real harry1 says:

8 Jan8 January 14:34

(Krankyfly) same here, I got 25% extra though this was 5 Jan in the afternoon

happy now, was cursing at the time 🙂
David says:

8 Jan8 January 14:34

You used to be able to go via Clubcard.
the_real_a says:

8 Jan8 January 14:40

But in essence your points would be tax deductible Vs a cash discount at the till. Of course this depends on how much tax your business is paying. Ryman is very expensive IMO 🙂
Tony says:

10 Jan10 January 14:07

Avios and BAEC conversion now has a 5% bonus which is not as good as 25% but still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
Rob says:

11 Jan11 January 13:52

No, they changed that after the fact. I used that article as the basis for the piece I wrote on HFP and there was definitely no closing date listed.