How to hack your way to free travel and adventure in 2017
For the past few months I’ve been obsessing over Avios (otherwise referred to as air miles or points). Specifically, how to accrue them as quickly as possible, so that I can take my family to more lovely places that we wouldn’t have been able to get to otherwise.
Over the years I’ve had to do a lot of travel and made sure to join several airline mileage programs, but without much focus. I haphazardly collected a fair amount of points and probably could have 3x the amount, if I’d thought about it more at the time.
That’s something I started to do last year after spending the last of my point reserves (on both Star Alliance and BA). And I’m glad I spent them. Those points got us four return flights to Nice for just £70, a stay for the whole family at a 5-star hotel in St Paul De Vence, two return flights to Naples (one leg in business) for my 10-yr wedding anniversary and 3 nights in a hotel on the beachfront in Amalfi.
These are things I simply wouldn’t have been able to do if I hadn’t been bothered to collect points at all. And I have to admit it was a satisfying feeling to treat the family to some extra holidays after having spent so much time travelling for business.
But having now exhausted my reserves, I was faced with the challenge of how to build them back up again. So I did a fair bit of digging around and realised that there was a lot more to collecting points than just having to fly too often for work.
I’ve had several conversations over the last few weeks about some of the top tips I’ve discovered and I‘d like to share them in this post so that you can hack your way to more holidays and adventures too.
Note: I lost most of my bronze/silver/gold statuses after I left SoundCloud and reduced my travel. But collecting status and tier points is not something I’m so focused on right now and is probably a topic for another post. Below I’ll just talk about collecting points that you can redeem mostly for flights and travel.
1) Sign up for BA Executive Club
This sounds obvious, but you do actually have to sign up to an airline program to start with. Which means you also have to pick the right one for you. I started my miles collecting many years ago with Star Alliance because I had taken a bunch of flights on United and Air Canada. But regrettably, I then found myself split between United (Star Alliance) and British Airways (OneWorld).
The audience for this post is people based in the UK, so my advice is to sign up with the BA Executive Club, which is my sole focus now. The rest of this post assumes that you have done so. But I’m sure there are similar hacks you can use no matter where you’re based.
Ironically, flying isn’t the only, or even the most efficient, way to collect Avios. But thanks to a New Year promotion that BA have on right now, you can earn Triple Avios for every flight flown between now and March 31st 2017. You have to register separately, so go and do this too, before you forget.
It’s worth noting at this point that the BA point system is operated through Avios, a separate entity. Think of Avios as a currency that operates across a number of different programs. I’ll use the words Avios, miles and points interchangeably in this article. But ultimately you’ll be earning Avios, which can also be collected and redeemed across any OneWorld airlines and various other places too (more on that below).
2) Sign up for other airline programs
Just because you’ve signed up for BA Executive Club, don’t feel you have to shy away from signing up for others. Just make sure to focus on one.
It’s dumb to take a much more expensive flight if the only reason is to collect points, so you’re going to fly other airlines and you may as well collect the points. For example, I just signed up to Norwegian which is a cracking airline with plenty of excellent, good value routes.
There are also some specific benefits to signing up for two of the other OneWorld/Avios programs, Iberia and AerLingus, as you can transfer your points and get better deals on some flights. But the explanation of that is outside the scope of this post.
3) Sign up for Avios.com
So, you’ve got your BA membership and you’re collecting Avios. Do you really need to sign up to Avios.com as well?
Well that’s what I thought up until very recently. Until I realized that there were a whole bunch of other ways to collect Avios outside of BA and that you could freely move your points between your accounts. So the next thing you’ll want to do is sign up for a separate Avios.com account.
Once you’re done make sure to keep your eyes peeled for the frequent promotions and offers popping up to help maximise your point collection. For example, I’d been planning for ages to setup a new ISA account with Nutmeg and then realized I could get 5000 bonus Avios just for doing it through them.
Note: I’d highly recommend Nutmeg too and I think there is still a 2000 bonus Avios offer. Drop me an email to davehaynes11 at gmail and I can send you more info along with another intro offer.
You also collect points for doing your regular online shopping via the Avios E-store, in a very similar way to the cashback sites like TopCashback and Quidco (more on that below). They offer points for most major online stores, but not Amazon. So again, just remember that you’d be stupid to pay more on another site just to collect points if Amazon can sell you the same thing much cheaper.
However, just in the last few months I had to buy some new winter running gear and some Xmas stocking fillers for the wife, so I got points at places such as Nike.com (7 Avios for £1 spent) and Oliver Bonas (5 Avios for £1 spent). And you can get up to 10 Avios per £1 spent with their new in-store offers at places like Cafe Nero, if you register your American Express card.
Which brings me on to the next tip…
4) Get the BA Premium Plus American Express Card
Because of the very generous sign-up bonuses, getting a BA Amex card is one of the best ways to accelerate your Avios collection. Even after the initial sign-up bonuses you then accrue points on all your spend, which is especially useful if you are already using your own card for things like work expenses and groceries.
This past year I’ve changed most of my regular spending over to my Amex card. As a minimum that means my monthly train fare, my Oyster, the weekly Tesco order, coffee/lunches at work (Pret, Eat etc), Netflix, iTunes and much more besides.
There is the odd occasion where I can’t use it in an independent bar or cafe, but Amex is now accepted by all major retail chains (with the exception of B&Q) and I always have my Visa to hand just in case. The addition of contactless and the ability to add my different cards to Apple Pay makes it even more frictionless.
Note: getting a credit card to collect points is a dumb thing to do if you don’t plan to pay it straight off at the end of the month or use credit to buy things you don’t need or can’t afford.
With the premium plus card you’ll need to pay a small joining fee, but in the context of Avios collection I can honestly say it’s worth it. So what are the benefits?
- 26,000 Avios for signing up — if you spend £3,000 within three months — note that this is the higher signup bonus when using a referral
- Two-for-One Companion Voucher — allows me to get one extra flight for my wife each year
- 1.5 Avios for each £1 spent on the card
- 3 Avios for each £1 spent on booking flights or holidays with BA
Note: to get the extra Avios sign-up bonus you’ll need someone to refer you. And I’d be more than happy to do so (disclaimer — I also get a small bonus). So shoot me an email to davehaynes11 at gmail if you need a referral.
5) Sign up for the BA Amex Preferred Rewards Gold
I’ve only just figured out that you can actually register for two American Express cards and still get sign-up bonuses. The Preferred Rewards Gold is actually a chargecard, which means you automatically pay it off at the end of each month.
I realised that if I switch my regular spending to this card for 2–3 months I’ll get another large sign-up bonus and some other great benefits too, including two free Airport Lounge tickets. Here are the main headlines:
- 22,000 Membership Reward Points (transferable 1–1 to Avios) for signing up — if referred.
- Two free airport lounge passes — including Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted
- 1 Avios for each £1 spent on the card
There’s no sign-up fee for the first year and I’m planning on cancelling the card as soon as I’ve spent the £2000 within three months to earn the signup bonus. Also worth noting is that if you don’t think the fee on the aforementioned BA Premium Plus American Express is worth it (plus higher spend required for a Companion Voucher) then this is probably your next best option. But I’ve opted for both cards.
Note: again, happy to send you a referral for bonus signup Avios, just email me at davehaynes11 at gmail.
6) Sign up for a Tesco Club Card
We get all our family groceries delivered weekly by Tesco. And because I’d setup my wife as secondary cardholder on my BA American Express we were already getting some Avios on the regular card spend.
But up until very recently I was blissfully unaware that I should be also collecting Clubcard points, which you then transfer into Avios points. So now, for every £2.50 of Tesco Clubcard vouchers we get 600 Avios.
And what’s great is that I simply opt to auto-convert the Clubcard points, which means we can just set it and forget it. No remembering to use the vouchers and no faffing around to do the conversion.
7) Book hotels on Kaligo or Rocket Miles
Another thing I was blissfully unaware of up until very recently was the existence of two travel aggregators called Kaligo and Rocket Miles that allow you to earn additional Avios by booking hotels through them. They’re essentially the same as an Expedia or Booking.com but are affiliated with Avios, so allow you to earn additional points to incentivize booking through them. It’s always worth checking back on the other sites to make sure they haven’t got the same hotel a lot cheaper, but generally the prices are similar and some of the Avios offers can be in the tens of thousands.
- Use this link to sign up to Kaligo and you’ll get a bonus of 1000 Avios.
- Use this link to sign up to Rocketmiles and you’ll get a bonus of 1000 Avios.
8) Sign up for TopCashBack
I’d never really engaged with these cashback sites before, it all seemed like a bit of a hassle. But I signed up to TopCashback after being referred by someone and I’m very glad I did. In my first two months I’ve earned £185 cashback on things that I was going to purchase anyway and literally the only thing I needed to do was check the site beforehand, click through and then wait for my cashback. I got £105 for signing up for my Nutmeg ISA through them (on top of the very generous aforementioned Avios offer) and the rest was on various things I needed to buy for myself or the kids on Argos, Ebay etc.
It feels so simple that I always get a bit nervous that I’m not actually going to get the cashback. It can take a while for the cash to come through. But when it does, all I do is convert it into Avios (for which there is a 25% bonus!). Of course, you could just take the cash, if you have other things to spend it on, but I’m focused on flights. So for every £1 of cashback I transfer to Avios, I’ll receive 125 points.
Feel free to use my referral code to signup to TopCashback and you should get some money just for joining
9) Don’t fret about it
Now, all this comes with a caveat. Whilst most of this is a frictionless way of earning points for things you’re already doing, you will need to invest some initial time in getting things set up. Several people I’ve spoken to admit that they simply couldn’t be bothered, ‘life is too short’, and admittedly there are some people who take this stuff way too seriously. Like the guy who employed three people to take flights for him in Asia to max out a generous mileage offer (see this excellent video) or the guy who spent over £1000 on Lego Friends and then sold it back on Ebay as a hack to get a huge amount of Avios. So don’t fret about it, after all this is a hack to enjoy life more, not less. For me, I’m happy to geek out a little bit more than most as I’ve got family to visit in New Zealand and the flights are ridiculously expensive.
In the past three months alone, I’ve clocked up over 85,000 Avios just by paying a little more attention (not including Tesco Clubcard, which I haven’t worked out yet).
- 26,896 Avios = Flights and credit card spend
- 15,414 Avios = Avios offers and promotions + e-store spend
- 22,000 Avios = Amex Rewards Gold Card signup bonus (pending)
- 23,125 Avios = Topcashback transferred into points (pending)
Using my Companion Voucher from my BA Amex Card, that’s enough for two return flights to Sydney or Singapore, or two premium economy flights to somewhere like Dubai. Alternatively it’s quite a few short-haul trips to Europe.
Even if you just follow 3 or 4 of the simple steps above, I’m pretty confident you can have at least one or two free travel adventures in Europe this year with your friends or a loved one!
Please email (davehaynes11 at gmail) or tweet me if you’d like any referrals or have some similar tips to share. Enjoy hacking and good luck!
