Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get bonus Avios and Virgin Flying Club miles from Tesco via the Pay+ app

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I wanted to flag up this offer again today as it is a few months since we mentioned it and it is valid until the end of the year.

Tesco has a smartphone payment app called Pay+ (previously PayQwiq, a name that was dropped when they realised no-one could remember how to spell it).

It is Tesco’s payment app which let’s you pay your shopping and automatically collect Clubcard points.  Pay+ works a bit like Apple Pay or Android Pay, but with the added benefit of automatically adding your Clubcard number to the transaction so you don’t need to dig out your blue card.

To encourage people to try Pay+, until 31st December 2018 you will get 1 extra Clubcard point for every £4 spent in Tesco.  This is a decent offer, worth an extra 0.6 Avios per £1 or 0.625 Virgin Flying Club miles for every £1 of Tesco shopping you do.  It is a bit of a faff to set up Pay+ but once you’ve done it you’re good to earn bonus miles for the next five months.

You can read more about Pay + here. You will still receive all your usual loyalty points from your credit card too.


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 (139)

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

  • the real harry1 says:

    No Amazon cards at Waitrose, apparently – but sure, they do plenty of other cards if you spend at (say) Argos.

    I usually limit it to Amazon and council tax (eg Co-Op 10%) – not a big spender elsewhere. I guess if I needed a new kitchen or computer, you could save an easy 10%.

    I always get the Waitrose 10% on my Halifax card, comes around every 3 months, not used it yet.

  • 304degreesofbikefaff says:

    Is the platinum card check similar to Eurostar lounge, or is swiping involved?

  • Munch says:

    Has anyone successfully achieved the bonus on both Virgin Mastercards for 5000 and 15000 air miles? Did you cancel one card before applying for the other or did you hold both cards at the same time?

    • Rachael says:

      I used the free card. Both me my son, and hubby received the 5000 points in our Virgin account.

  • Darren says:

    OT, Etihad Guest.

    If I’m not going to use Etihad Guest miles for flying on Etihad what are the other options/best for redeeming? Can they be transferrred to hotel programs?

    Thanks

    • Rob says:

      Redeem for cash via PointsPay (search for our article)

      • Darren says:

        Thanks for the info, I don’t think I’ll build a big enough balance to redeem on them but it’ll be a little bonus from a Biz flight from Manchester that I have coming up. £1300ish to BKK which I thought was pretty good.

    • Alex Sm says:

      The short answer is Obama-style “yes, you can” – I’m sure HFP covered this before, try to search.

      They also have a convenient option of cashing out any amount of miles at a decent rate via a virtual debit card. My partner recently did this as we were exiting the Etihad Guest programme.

  • rams1981 says:

    Used my plat Amex at Plaza t5 on Wed. Decent breakfast spread, similar to BA club, and empty as discussed. Go to lounge now even if traveling club I think.

    Re plat fee, I upgraded from gold and was never charged which was great. Have also made over £450 in savings from their offers, mainly from the Esso offer buying gift cards so keeping it is a no brainer for me.

    • Tom1 says:

      If you upgraded from gold, I think you get the annual fee charged after 12 months from the start of your gold card.

      • BJ says:

        This is the way it works for most but still the odd report of it being applied sooner.

    • Miles says:

      When did you upgrade? I upgraded in May and was charged the £450 fee on the next statement..

      • Polly says:

        Luck of the draw..sporadic..I just upgraded, so,waiting to see what happens to mine. Hopefully won’t be charged.

        • Tom Cook says:

          I got my plat in November last year, I think, upgraded from Gold, but haven’t been charged. Tempted to cancel it now – we’re flying to Mykonos in August but am BA silver so can get lounge access that way and any other benefits won’t be used.

          Any reason I should keep it that I’m missing? Presume I will be charged at the end of my 12 months but wonder if I can get away without a charge if I cancel now.

    • AndyR says:

      What happens if you cancel the card if you haven’t been charged, would they notice?

      • the real harry1 says:

        Not really. Quite a few people get lucky, I’m one of them.

  • John says:

    I buy waitrose gift cards….

  • signol says:

    I buy Amazon gift cards at Morrison, getting Morrison points. Works out a couple of % back.

    signol

    • the real harry1 says:

      If you time it right, Amazon cards @ Morrisons = 13.5% discount.

      I think Mark2 does this as well, v surprised more people haven’t cottoned on 🙂

    • Alan says:

      Same here – also with the Amazon app you can now scan the GC to save time entering the code to redeem.

  • BJ says:

    Talking of waitrose, a sjell garage not so far from me now has a waitrose shop. Anybody know if transactions in tgese places track as shell or waitrose?

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