Buy Avios for 1p via a French deals website

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I have covered a few of the Iberia / Groupon ‘buy Avios’ deals recently. The French equivalent of this deal has now returned, after initially running in March. It worked – administratively – pretty well that time.

You can find full details here on the vente-privee website.

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The first thing to note is that the deal is only on the French site, and the French site only operates in French. You will therefore need to rely on Google Translate if you use Chrome, or something similar if you don’t.

You will also need to give a false five digit French postcode when you register as UK postcodes are not accepted. It doesn’t ask for your address, only your postcode.

Here is the pricing:

2,000 Avios for €21 (0.97p)
4,000 Avios for €45 (1.04p)
8,000 Avios for €99 (1.14p)
12,000 Avios for €145 (1.12p)
20,000 Avios for €229 (1.06p)
35,000 Avios for €399 (1.06p)

What makes this deal easier to administer than the Groupon one is that Avios is providing the back-end redemption.

Once you are emailed your voucher by vente-privee, you go to this page of the Avios website (which is in English) and input your code number.

You will see that the Avios can be dropped into either a BA, Iberia, avios.com or AerClub account, although as you can move them around via ‘Combine My Avios’ it doesn’t make much difference.

You can buy up to 100,000 points. The maximum you can buy of any particular quantity is 3, so you’d logically start with 3 x 2,000, then add 3 x 4,000, before juggling the other pricier options to get to your target.

In reality you can almost certainly buy more than 100,000. Even if the redemption website kept track, which I doubt it would, you could send 100,000 to an Iberia account, 100,000 to a BA account etc.

Is this worth it?

Last Monday I showed you how to get 18,000 Avios for £146 via the Irish Independent newspaper. This is 0.81p per Avios, compared to a minimum of 1p here. If you only want a small number of points, do the Irish Independent offer first and then move on to this.

I won’t be buying via vente-privee at this price. 0.75p tends to be my floor price, as I’ve said before. Over the last four years I’ve averaged 1.2p per Avios point redeemed so I’m not willing to pay 1.0p to buy them given that I wouldn’t be spending them for a couple of years.

That said, you may well get a higher value from your redemptions than I do. You may also just be looking for a way of topping up your account quickly. If you are, this may be a good way of doing it. It is a decent price given that you don’t have to go to much effort to earn the points.

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: