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No more Avios from mortgages as Tesco Bank puts its portfolio up for sale

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It is no longer possible to earn Avios points from mortgages.

There has only been one way to earn Avios from your mortgage, and that was via Tesco Bank.

Tesco Bank quietly entered the mortgage market back in 2014.  We never covered it much because there are many factors to consider when taking out a mortgage.

Whether or not you will earn Avios or Virgin Flying Club miles via Clubcard points should be very much at the bottom of your list of considerations.

It was all very simple:

You earned 1 Tesco Clubcard point (2.4 Avios) for every £4 of your monthly mortgage payment.  This applied to both the capital and interest elements.

You earned 1 Tesco Clubcard point (2.4 Avios) for every £4 of any overpayment you make, as long as it does not fully repay your mortgage

If you were making monthly payments of £1000 you would be earning 250 Clubcard points.  This is worth 600 Avios, so about £5-£6 of value.  It was not enough to move the needle on which mortgage provider is cheapest.

This deal is no more.  Tesco Bank announced yesterday that it is pulling out of the mortgage market. It is no longer accepting new applications and, more importantly, the existing loan book will be sold to another lender.  Once the sale is complete it is virtually certain that Clubcard points will no longer be available.

It isn’t clear what the future holds for the rest of Tesco Bank. It has not made much of an impact in the current account market, and the credit card arm is also underpowered.

When it launched the current account, Tesco claimed that it was deliberately uncompetitive so that it could offer good customer service.  Several years on, that excuse no longer washes.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

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Barclaycard Avios card

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There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

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You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

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There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

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Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

British Airways and Avios, Tesco Clubcard

Comments (184)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Al says:
    22 May22 May 05:53

    I got the benefit of the T5 change for Phoenix (don’t get to go to Concorde much) but lost out on my first and possibly last chance for a 747 1A seat :(, as the plane changed too, probably for the best. The automatic re-seating now has my wife on the other side of the 787 and we can’t sit closer due to the smaller cabin, though she doesn’t seem to mind! Hmm. 😉

  • Richard says:
    22 May22 May 06:11

    Whilst perhaps they did not have the wide variety accounts with various fees/perks etc to compete on every segment of the market, from 4 years to ~12 months ago with the interest rates on their current account being good and it earning clubcard points at a rate in Tesco it is surprising to me that they did not penetrate more.

    It was going to struggle to become the HfP demographics main account, but when it was decent interest on up to 3k, for a mass market account that should have been quite compelling.

    In the last year or so lots of my (early/mid twenties) friends have been picking up a Monzo- type card when they go abroad once a year so it saves them about a fiver.. Their average balance doesn’t have to be that high for their current account not being an interest earning one to cost them more than that

    • David says:
      22 May22 May 07:34

      Exactly – the 3% on £3k makes it one of the best savings accounts on the market! Although that’s dropping at some point in the next couple of months, but it’s been great for the last few years.

      • Alan says:
        22 May22 May 08:09

        Dropping next month IIRC. It has been good as I have an account and my wife has 2. We got these before they introduced the requirements to actually have to use the account so I’m pretty sure that we aren’t their ideal customers!

  • Tony says:
    22 May22 May 06:28

    It would be lovely if my UK passport worked at the e-gates in LHR! Sadly it seems I’m far from alone in being unable to use them and haven’t been successful in years now. It works fine in other countries’ automated gates.

    • Genghis says:
      22 May22 May 06:46

      +1 supposedly I have a similar name to some guy *still* on the wanted list.

    • Shoestring says:
      22 May22 May 07:42

      My son refused to take off his beanie coming back to UK at Easter – and still got through the eGate

      • marcw says:
        22 May22 May 08:33

        The machine does not take a picture… it measures some distance ratios on your face.

        • John says:
          22 May22 May 10:18

          and if it doesn’t recognise those ratios, the human controller can still open the gate from their computer.

  • Paul says:
    22 May22 May 06:33

    More people using the awful e gate system! Great…. Not
    My last two arrival in T5 have seen more than half the machines out of action. This along with the …also usual…. high fail rate, meant that I have learned to go into the line, wait a short time and then proceed to the desk with all the other fails… works well when you do that.
    The U.K. border force at LHR is by some considerable margin the most unpleasant I have found anywhere. They really bought in to Mrs May’ hostile environment.

    • BSI1978 says:
      22 May22 May 06:57

      My experience/view differs. Whilst there’s lots to bemoan about LHR, the border staff are not, in my experience that bad at all – especially considering the grief they sometimes get. Whilst I guess it depends on how much one travels, there’s far, far worse nations border staff across the globe, who seem to think they are doing you a favour by letting you in….

      • Alan says:
        22 May22 May 08:12

        Agree. I have experienced far worse in both USA and Germany. I have always found LHR staff to be pleasant. Maybe they just don’t like your face Paul, or maybe they feel you are antagonistic.

    • JP says:
      22 May22 May 08:14

      Not half as miserable/power hungry as Americans

      • RussellH says:
        22 May22 May 16:25

        I have to admit that my recent experiences with US immigration staff have been surprisingly pleasant; at MIA, ORD and OAK.
        Staff at OAK were a real bonus after the BA flight from LGW.

        The automated systems at MIA were horrendous, though, and the comments by the US citizens (not) being welcomed home were instructive.

    • Michael says:
      22 May22 May 08:40

      They are a walk in the park compared to the ones in the US. Personally I think our border force at the airports are fine.

    • Nathan says:
      22 May22 May 09:04

      I’ll assume that your travel plans have not taken you via Stansted, that place takes the biscuit!

      • Michael says:
        22 May22 May 09:12

        I’m lucky enough to live far far away from Stansted 🙂

    • Bagoly says:
      22 May22 May 11:50

      The only time I have experienced bad attitude coming to the UK was at LTN on the Machine-Failed line.
      From two women who looked more like those who typically staff DXB (where I have always had good experience).
      Does the Border Force motivate people with such background to be nasty to “prove” themselves?
      Fortunately the gates have worked for my passport the last few times.

      The gates at SXF, supposedly for all EU citizens, have refused my passport three times out of three, and they have no Machine-Failed line – one has to go to the back of the queue for the kiosks – so I have given up.

  • Thomas Howard says:
    22 May22 May 06:35

    It would have been nice if the UK government had managed to secure reciprocal arrangements with the countries added to the list that can use the ePassport gates. We get longer queues at home and nothing at the destination.

    • L Allen says:
      22 May22 May 06:51

      I’ve used the eGates in Australia, when I travelled there the past two years, with my British passport. Refuse to go to the USA and have no experience of the other countries.

    • Nick_C says:
      22 May22 May 07:25

      We have had access to the APC kiosks in the US for a few years now, and they really speed up the process. But this isn’t about improving service. It’s about saving money. If you can process people electronically it makes sense to do so.

      • Alan says:
        22 May22 May 08:14

        The US machines appear to be getting removed. According to reports they have already been removed from MCO.

        They worked well for us in JFK last year although we did get an “X” and had to see an officer but there was no queue to see him whereas the non-machine line was reporting a 55 minute queue.

    • Michael C says:
      22 May22 May 07:42

      Singapore takes about 4 minutes anyway, amid beautiful tropical gardens and free sweets for kids.

      • Nathan says:
        22 May22 May 09:07

        Not if you’re in Y on BA’s A380. I love the fact that they have all the scanning and database tech but one still has to fill in the pointless piece of paper even if transiting.

      • John says:
        22 May22 May 10:20

        and the death penalty for drugs and a one-party state that doesn’t permit political gatherings without permission.

        • Lady London says:
          22 May22 May 10:45

          You mean the political or protest gatherings that are no longer permitted in the UK anywhere within 1 mile of the Houses of Parliament?

        • Dev says:
          22 May22 May 10:45

          They should take a leaf from current British politics, such as it is. A real ideal model for the undemocratic world to follow. 😉

  • Saxon says:
    22 May22 May 07:01

    Lost out on the terminal change. BA announced it as a 30 minute time change, didn’t flag the terminal move at all! I thought I had missed it when booking the flights. Disappointed to miss out on the Concorde room as we aren’t likely to be travelling first again though the Cathay lounge seems highly rated.

  • PaulW says:
    22 May22 May 07:12

    Here is a LHR weirdness. The e-gates at t5 connections you have to be 18+ whilst 12+ for exit to baggage. A right pain when returning to uk with kids and on tight onward connection to Manchester etc. So glad my daughter turns 18 soon!

    • Anna says:
      22 May22 May 08:24

      +1, can’t understand this if the child has a biometric passport. Another 5 years with our boy though!

  • Paul says:
    22 May22 May 07:23

    Can anyone tell me what the logic is of having this odd flight in T3 – surely T5 can’t be so full it justifies the logistical issues this must cause? Thanks

    • TGLoyalty says:
      22 May22 May 07:26

      BA still have other flights leaving from T3 throughout the day. Barcelona Luxembourg and Prague are 3 off the top of my head.

      • Nick says:
        22 May22 May 07:36

        Accra too.

        • roberto says:
          22 May22 May 07:49

          Gib and Vegas.. Two places I frequent

          • Al says:
            22 May22 May 07:57

            Cape town Lyon….

            Basically lots…

          • Mark says:
            22 May22 May 08:07

            And the reason for both the terminal and aircraft change… American now flies the route as well, so they are sharing capacity and it therefore makes sense to have both services operate from the same terminal.

          • Mark says:
            22 May22 May 08:13

            Or at least that would be an explanation for the terminal change if going the other way… Need a delete button!

      • Anna says:
        22 May22 May 08:25

        Miami! Looking forward to trying the Cathay lounge next Easter.

        • Liz says:
          22 May22 May 12:19

          We just flew to Denver on Sunday from T3 and enjoyed the Cathay and Qantas lounges for the first time!

      • Lady London says:
        22 May22 May 10:50

        Plus remember if you land in J or F off a longhaul BA flight that lands in T3 you get access to the rather nicer AA Arrivals lounge. Its opening hours are also slightly longer than the BA Arrivals Lounge in T5 also.

    • Michael says:
      22 May22 May 08:47

      It’s down to an aircraft swap. Phoenix is going from a 747 to a 787 and 787’s don’t operate from T3 so it has to move. San Diego in future will continue to be operated by a 747 so that can swap over to T3 where 747’s operate (along with T5 of course).

    • JamesLHR says:
      22 May22 May 09:17

      There isn’t sufficient capacity in T5 across all the systems and processes for all of BA’s operation. Therefore it has to be split across terminals.

      It is in T3 for alignment with the Oneworld alliance.

      The routes chosen have the lowest volume of connecting traffic.

      • Shoestring says:
        22 May22 May 10:14

        suits me fine…pleasantly small terminal…remind me of the long list of lounges to try on Friday (Oneworld/ BA Business courtesy IB90K)?!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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