How do I earn Avios from Heathrow Rewards points?

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This articles shows you how you can earn Avios points from Heathrow Rewards and how to convert your Heathrow Rewards points into Avios.

Heathrow Rewards, the loyalty scheme for shopping or parking at Heathrow Airport, is a long-established partner of Avios and British Airways Executive Club. It is an easy way to pick up a few extra Avios.

How do I collect Heathrow Rewards points?

You can find full details of Heathrow Rewards on its website here.

Heathrow Rewards gives you 1 point for every £1 spent in shops at Heathrow Airport, either landside or airside.

Check the small print before you make your purchases at Heathrow as some items such as tobacco do not count. Gift card purchases do not count if they are for the store where you buy the card – eg M&S gift cards bought in M&S do not count (and a friend recently tried this as a test) but third party gift cards bought in WH Smith seem to be OK.

You also earn 1 point per £10 of foreign exchange you buy, and 1 point per £1 spent on Heathrow Express tickets.

You can also earn points by booking hotels via the Rocketmiles portal. There is often a generous first user offer – see here for example.

Heavy spenders will be promoted to Heathrow Rewards Premium. Spend £750 in a calendar year and you will receive double points going forward and some Heathrow Express upgrade vouchers, amongst other perks.

When you have earned 250 points you can exchange them for airline miles or shopping vouchers.

Is there a bonus for joining Heathrow Rewards?

There is a generous 2019 sign-up bonus worth 3,000 Heathrow Rewards points.

The minimum spend to trigger the bonus is £150 in a single day before 31st December 2019.

To get the bonus you need to make sure you add the promotion code BA2019 at the bottom of ‘contact information’ on the registration page. Whilst the code is from the BA website, it doesn’t stop you moving the points to a different airline if you wish once you have triggered the bonus.

(The original source of this code is this page of the BA website.)

You may well already have a Heathrow Rewards account. If so, consider persuading someone who shares a BA or Avios household account with you to open one too.

If you are flying this weekend, don’t worry about not receiving your plastic card in time. You can use the Heathrow Airport app to add your Heathrow Rewards card to your smartphone wallet. Alternatively, save your receipts and scan or post them to Heathrow Rewards and they will add the points manually.

How can I spend Heathrow Rewards points?

You can redeem your Heathrow Rewards points for Avios at the ratio of 1:1, with a minimum transfer of 250.

You can also send them to Virgin Flying Club, Aegean Miles+Bonus, Miles & More, Emirates Skywards, Royalskies (Royal Brunei) or Krisflyer (Singapore Airlines).

Alternatively, you can redeem for Heathrow shopping vouchers or Heathrow Express vouchers, or vouchers towards the official Heathrow car parks.

In 2017/18 Heathrow Rewards was running regular transfer bonuses into airline programmes. We haven’t seen one for a few months, but I recommend sitting on your points if you don’t need the Avios immediately. It would be a shame to miss out on a 50% conversion bonus.

Is it worth converting Heathrow Rewards points to Avios?

Good question. 250 Heathrow Rewards points gets you 250 Avios or £2.50 of Heathrow shopping voucher or £5 of Official Heathrow Parking vouchers.

If you pay for the official car parks at Heathrow then I would redeem for that instead. It is less clear cut whether it is ‘worth’ paying 1p per Avios by taking the miles rather than the shopping vouchers. Cash is king, but Heathrow vouchers are not as flexible as cash unless you are passing through the airport on a regular basis.

In reality, your choice is likely to be swayed by a good transfer bonus, either for shopping vouchers or an airline scheme.

Conclusion

Heathrow Rewards is a good opportunity to top up your Avios points and the sign-up bonus of 3,000 points – if you can spend £150 in one day at the airport – is very generous.

(This article is part of our ‘BA Q&A’ series which explains how British Airways Executive Club works. You can see all of our ‘BA Q&A’ articles here. )

(Head for Points is the UK’s biggest frequent flyer website with 1.8 million monthly page views. Want to learn more about earning and spending Avios? Click here to read our latest news stories, click here to join our email list and click here to read our ‘Avios Redemption University’ series.)

How to get 20,000 Avios from Amex Gold or 30,000 Avios from Amex Platinum (December 2021 offer)

The sign-up bonus on American Express Preferred Rewards Gold converts to 20,000 Avios and the card is free for the first year. You can apply here.

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

You don’t qualify for the Amex Gold bonus if you have a British Airways American Express card. You DO qualify for the bonus on The Platinum Card, which converts into 30,000 Avios. You can apply here.

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

If you have your own small business, the best way of earning Avios is via the Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa. It has a sign-up bonus which converts to 10,000 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 look at the British Airways Accelerating Business card, because it currently has a limited time offer of 60,000 Avios when you sign up by 14th November. You can apply here.