Avios drops Tristar as a partner – how else can you earn travelling to Heathrow?

Avios dropped chauffeur group Tristar as an earning partner yesterday.  Existing bookings will still be honoured but you will no longer earn points on new Tristar bookings.

Coincidentally, Emirates gave me a Tristar chauffeur when I arrived at Heathrow on Friday afternoon and it was the smartest car I’ve been driven in for ages.  I’m not sure if this was because I was in First Class rather than Business Class but it was substantially better than the (non Tristar) car Etihad sent me on Tuesday morning.

The email sent out by Tristar makes it clear that this decision was taken by Avios and not by Tristar.  The partnership has only been in operation for a little over 18 months.

It is presumably part of the ‘tidying up’ of the various Avios programmes before they are migrated to the avios.com platform later this year.  That said, Tristar operates in 80 countries – so it’s not as if it lacked coverage in other places where Avios operates – and British Airways Executive Club does not have any other chauffeur partner.

One possibility is that BA could be moving to Blacklane, although this is only a guess.  Blacklane has just launched a partnership with Lufthansa Miles & More and is expanding aggressively.

Virgin Flying Club remains a Tristar partner

If you will still be using Tristar, remember that it remains a partner with Virgin Atlantic.

Full details are on the Virgin Atlantic website here.

You earn 2 Flying Club miles for every £1 you spend.  You can also redeem 17,500 Virgin Flying Club miles for a one-way Tristar transfer if you have booked an Upper Class redemption.

How else can I earn Avios getting to the airport?

There are still two other ways of earning Avios points when travelling to Heathrow.

If you book Heathrow Express tickets via this special link, which does not offer the cheaper advanced purchase options, you will earn 10 Avios points per £1 spent.

If you choose to take a taxi, you can still collect Avios whenever you take a trip using cab app Hailo (now being rebranded as mytaxi).   Full details of that partnership are on ba.com here.  You earn 1 Avios point per £1 spent.

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 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 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.)