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EXCLUSIVE: No more Avios from Tesco Clubcard

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British Airways and Tesco have decided to part ways. The option to convert your Tesco Clubcard points into Avios is ending soon.

Nothing will change with the partnership between Tesco Clubcard and Virgin Flying Club.

When is Clubcard ending Avios earning?

The last day to initiate a transfer of your Tesco Clubcard points into Avios is 18th January

Tesco Clubcard dropping British Airways Avios as a partner

For those who receive their Clubcard vouchers quarterly, the last day to earn points via Tesco is 22nd October. This is the cut-off date for the November voucher mailing. The next mailing after that will not take place until February, at which point it will be too late to convert.

However, if you have the Tesco app, you can still collect points after 22nd October. This is because app users can turn their Clubcard points into e-vouchers at any time. You simply need to order an e-voucher with your remaining Clubcard points balance by mid January to ensure that it can be converted to Avios by 18th January.

Why is Tesco splitting with British Airways?

It isn’t made clear.

EDIT: Tesco contacted me after the publication of this article to state that it was the decision of British Airways to withdraw from Clubcard. Tesco did not want it to leave the scheme.

However, let me take a guess.

The volume of points transferred from Clubcard to Avios is likely to have fallen sharply in the last couple of years. I have no idea of the exact numbers, although we know that – in 2013 – 2.5 BILLION Avios were ‘bought’ with Tesco Clubcard points. 2.5 billion Avios represents over £10 million of Clubcard vouchers at face value.

I am guessing that number is well down. We have recently seen:

the closure of Tesco Direct, an exceptional source of bonus point opportunities

the closure of Tesco Wine plus other small non-core Tesco companies

the shrinking of Tesco Bank, including the closure of Tesco Mortgages (which earned points) and the closure of Tesco Bank current accounts to new applicants, which earned points for debit card spending

the ending of Clubcard earning at Esso garages, except those with a Tesco Express store

a move towards price discounts rather than bonus points as a way of driving sales in Tesco stores

Tesco’s loss of market share to Aldi and Lidl

Avios has not become less attractive as a conversion option – indeed, I moved back to converting the few Clubcard points I still earn to Avios after two better alternatives (Safestore and Uber) withdrew – but I imagine that the number of Clubcard points in circulation is down.

Tesco Clubcard dropping British Airways Avios as a partner

Does British Airways have a better offer up its sleeve?

British Airways was a small cog in the Tesco wheel. It wasn’t even the only frequent flyer partner – Virgin Atlantic is also in there. You can imagine why Avios may have wanted something more high profile.

On the other hand …. if Tesco was the only deal in town, it would be foolish to walk away. Surely something is up?

What could British Airways be planning?

Good question. There is no obvious solution:

Sainsbury’s? Arguably a better ‘fit’ with the Executive Club customer base, but how would Avios fit with Nectar? There is no chance of Nectar being dropped given that Sainsbury’s now owns it. Would Avios want to be a Nectar conversion partner? The old BA Miles scheme WAS a Sainsbury’s partner many years ago.

Waitrose? Potentially an even better fit with the Executive Club customer base. Waitrose is only a fraction of the size of Tesco, however. It also has no points-based loyalty programme. John Lewis Partnership has a new management team in place so you can’t totally discount this.

Marks & Spencer? It has an even smaller market share in food than Waitrose. It has also just overhauled its useless Sparks loyalty scheme, which remains non-points based, so I can’t see it making more changes so soon.

Asda / Morrisons? Unlikely. Asda has literally just been sold so I doubt it had been planning fundamental loyalty changes. Both chains have focused on price over points. The same goes for Aldi and Lidl, times ten.

Tesco Clubcard dropping British Airways Avios as a partner

What are the options, realistically?

Perhaps Avios becomes a Nectar transfer partner ….. although this would disturb the whole Avios ecosystem since many Nectar partners compete with Avios partners. The maths doesn’t work either. At present, £1 spent in Tesco earns you 2.4 Avios. Assuming a 2 Nectar to 1 Avios conversion rate, £1 spent in Sainsbury’s would only earn 0.5 Avios. It wouldn’t get many people to switch.

or ….

Perhaps Waitrose launches an Avios scheme via card-based earning …. there would be no points scheme BUT you could earn via your credit or debit card spend being tracked. Waitrose offered this with Virgin Atlantic for a while but it was never ‘official’ – Waitrose never promoted it. It would be expensive for Waitrose, however, given that they wouldn’t be getting much in the way of customer data in return.

or ….

Perhaps Waitrose and John Lewis launch a combined loyalty scheme (this is believed to be coming soon after a trial in a handful of areas). This could have some points-based element with Avios as one of a small number of partners. The John Lewis Partnership credit card could potentially also be pulled into this with its current 0.25% cashback offering 0.25 Avios an alternative.

The last option makes most sense, but is very hypothetical at the moment. We may need to wait until 19th January to find out.

Please share your craziest Tesco Avios-earning offers

If you’ve been collecting Avios seriously for less than five years, you won’t understand how fundamental Tesco Clubcard used to be.

You won’t look at the package below and shudder ….

Share your best or most notorious Tesco Clubcard deal in the comments. Most of them pre-date Head for Points (so pre-2012) so we are going back a long way.

For more information ….

Take a look at BA’s Tesco page here. At the time of writing there is nothing on Tesco’s BA page here.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

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:

Barclaycard Avios Plus 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

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

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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American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

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The Platinum Card from American Express

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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, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (328)

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

  • Ruth says:
    12 Oct12 October 12:05

    Well there was that one Christmas when practically everyone I knew ended up with a Lego set of some sort…

  • Navara says:
    12 Oct12 October 12:24

    Multi membership’s of the wine club,food club and healthy living club arriving all on the same day, felt sorry for the postman.

    • Navara says:
      12 Oct12 October 14:52

      Must still be on the mailing list. Just got back home to a pile of Tesco letters…

  • Steve in Croydon says:
    12 Oct12 October 12:39

    You don’t need to have the Tesco App to convert pending points into vouchers. You can also do it via the standard browser sign-in to your ClubCard. There’s an “Able to Request” tab on the vouchers summary page. It says that they will be ready to use by tomorrow.
    So everyone can get their humbug Christmas spending converted to Avos before the late February voucher cutoff.
    I’m currently sitting on £120 of vouchers (c 38,000 Avios) and bugger all else on the Tesco list interests me, so they will most probably go across with the 750,000+ in my BAEC account.

  • Julian says:
    12 Oct12 October 12:46

    13 pages of comments so far. Hence appears a particularly significant topic for HfP readers.

    But re Lidl I would point out that they not only take Amex but also now have the new Lidl Plus loyalty Smartphone App that gives £5 off on sign up and up to 5% off per month (£10 coupon for £200 spent in a month) with Partner Offers of which the most significant so far is Sky.

    On the other hand one doesn’t collect points with the App but only redeem vouchers on certain products and get money discount cooper for store spend so may be it wouldn’t lend itself to an Avios link?

    Cue the HfP snobs only staying in 5 star hotels and travelling in First or Club to suggest they have never even been to Lidl or Aldi and only ever food shop at Waitrose or M&S.

    • Anna says:
      12 Oct12 October 13:04

      I love both Lidl and Aldi, especially since they started accepting Amex! I think a large proportion of the readership loves a bargain, regardless of income or status – some of the wealthiest people on the planet are also the thriftiest!

      • Julian says:
        12 Oct12 October 13:25

        Lidl’s lower prices (also these are Aldi lower prices in many cases as more than half their products appear to come from the same suppliers) are exceptional on some products such as the 450g packs of mussels, Gravadlax Salmon and 300ml pot of Single Cream (Tesco started trying to price match it with a 300ml Creamfields product but that cream seems to be part diluted with water unlike the Lidl or Aldi equivakent) which the old style supermarkets appear to have been overcharging us on.

        I used to be a big Tesco Express shopper but now they have started to make me angry by charging up to 30% more than Extra stores on certain product lines. This is in addition to longstanding annoying but not quite as outrageous policies such as only keeping very expensive branded lines of cereals yoghurts, salad dressings and many other products in Tesco Express stores. Yet the milk and salads cost the same as at an Extra store and the odd larger Express store does also do the six fruit yoghurts for a pound (that at Lidl only cost 85p………)

        This is presumably like putting up car park charges where short term the councils appear to make more money but in the long term people start shopping out of town and lots of empty shop units start appearing in the town centres.

        I find Tesco Clubcard discounted prices in Extra stores plain annoying as they only exist on certain Branded goods with clearly extortionately large profit margins and with particularly excessive prices where the alleged special Tesco Clubcard price is still significantly higher than the own branded equivalent of the same product.

        • Julian says:
          12 Oct12 October 13:28

          Anyway to conclude I used to do 85%+ of my shopping at Tesco (especially Tesco Express) and then mainly otherwise shopped at Co-Op convenience stores (since they had stores where Tesco often didn’t) but now I am doing 70% of my shopping at Lidl or Aldi.

          If this pattern is replicated amongst single people (who Tesco Express stores are aimed at in particular) then Tesco is in very big trouble in my view.

          • Super Secret Stuff says:
            12 Oct12 October 13:44

            Don’t forget aldi and ladles dilutet milk (which is an actual fact as semi skimmed in 50 kcal per 100 ml unless you add water).

            You’re not always getting the same product or quality for the price. I admit some stuff is amazingly good value, but nowhere enough for me to split my big weekly shop between different shops.

          • Andrew says:
            12 Oct12 October 15:29

            @SuperSecretStuff

            Well, that’s a clear lie isn’t it?

            Full cream – 68 Kcal per 100ml
            Semi-skimmed 47 Kcal per 100ml
            Skimmed – 35 Kcal per 100ml

            So you claim of 50Kcal per 100ml would mean that Lidl semi-skimmed is richer and creamier than it should be.

    • Super Secret Stuff says:
      12 Oct12 October 13:49

      Also before anyone says something, no i don’t shop in waitrose. Yes I have used aldi and Lidls (if I was strapt for cash then yes I would switch to them).

      I shop at Sainsuburys and occasionally Co-op to see what offers they have on. Main weekly shop is at Tesco

      • Julian says:
        12 Oct12 October 15:27

        Re Lidl and Aldi milk I will certainly now check the calorie count on comparable sizes of their milk vs Tesco. Certainly taste wise I notice zero difference on fresh semi skimmed milk. By contrast Tesco Creamfields 300ml Single Cream supposedly price matched with Aldi absolutely terrible and tastes more like milk than cream but Lidl 300ml single cream absolutely delicious. Anyway will now have to keep an empty carton of the 300ml Lidl Single cream to compare against Tesco Creamfields. Unless calory count information can be found online.

        I think allegations Lidl and Aldi supply products inferior on quality to Tesco and Sainsburys are generally not true. But there are exceptions as Lidl and Aldi Clementines absolutely awful and stringy (often Class 2 and not Class 1 I notice on the packaging) and the best Clementines by far are to be found at Co-Op. Co-Op milk on the other hand massively more expensive most of the time (except when they run periodic two 4 pint cartons for £2.20 offers rather than £1.60 or so for just one carton) than other supermarkets but tastes absolutely no better.

    • Lee says:
      12 Oct12 October 14:03

      Hope Lidl or Aldi start home delivery soon.

      • Crafty says:
        12 Oct12 October 15:29

        Lidl have just announced they’ve canned their trial.

        • Genghis says:
          12 Oct12 October 20:48

          Aldi are trialling click and collect. I’ll probably start using it for big shops as whizzing round in the car is easy. (We also use Tesco delivery for more regular deliveries)

      • Anna says:
        12 Oct12 October 20:16

        Aldi delivers wine, which is terrific value!

        • Anna says:
          12 Oct12 October 20:17

          And spirits, come to think of it. We tried some very exotic gins during the summer lockdown.

  • Joel says:
    12 Oct12 October 12:51

    Does anyone know if Goldsmith vouchers can be used in Watches of Switzerland stores?

    • Julian says:
      12 Oct12 October 13:30

      From http://www.goldsmiths.co.uk/c/Watches-of-Switzerland-Picks/ Goldsmiths is a trading name of Watches of Switzerland Company Limited. Registered Office: Aurum House, 2 Elland Road, Braunstone, Leicester, LE3 1TT, Registered in England and Wales, Company number 00146087 But I don’t know if they accept the vouchers between their two sub brands or not. Why not ask them.

    • Jonathan says:
      16 Oct16 October 11:21

      It worked for me a few years back.

      I took the Brietling back to Goldsmiths and was given an Aurum group credit voucher that I then used in Watches Of Switzerland to buy an Omega speedmaster moon watch.( goldsmiths in my city didn’t sell Omega )

      • Joel says:
        16 Oct16 October 12:43

        Thanks for the info! I’ve managed to ask Goldsmiths to order in a watch I wanted that was out of stock in their branch and was able to use my tesco vouchers that way.

  • The real John says:
    12 Oct12 October 14:05

    This morning I got a letter in the post regarding this…. so they must have already decided this by Friday, or at a stretch very early on Saturday.

  • ChasP says:
    12 Oct12 October 14:28

    Funny that Cruz chose today to resign Interesting that it was BA decision I assume BA get paid by Tesco when the points are exchanged so that might give them a small short term cash boost if everyone swaps their vouchers in the next 3 months

  • Geoff says:
    12 Oct12 October 14:32

    If, as the article now says it was a British Airways decision to leave Tesco Clubcard, has anyone asked them why they are leaving and what they intend to replace the offer with? As Rhys says you don’t make these sort of changes on a whim.

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

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