Is Nectar’s hotel booking site a good way of earning Avios?

Back in 2020, Nectar launched its own hotel booking site, which you can find at hotels.nectar.com.

You may recognise it as a white label version of Rocketmiles, which is itself part of Agoda, which is itself part of Booking.com.

With Hotels.com Rewards being closed, and effectively gutted, via the merger with One Key, I thought it was worth another look at a possible alternative.

Nectar Hotels has no ‘first booking bonus’

Whilst there is an occasional promotion running (you may see something targetted in the Nectar app), there is usually no incentive running to attract new customers.

With no ‘first booking bonus’, you are reliant on the base points for your return.  You will earn 1,000 to 2,000 Nectar points PER NIGHT.  This means £5 to £10-worth of Nectar points or, if you convert the Nectar points to Avios, 625 to 1,250 Avios PER NIGHT.

All hotels cheaper than around £30 seem to have been removed from the site, so you can’t book a £3 hostel in Bangkok and come out on top!

There is no direct correlation between price and points.  In general, you should expect 2,000 points per night when spending £275+ per night but this is not a strict rule.

Is Nectar Hotels a good deal? 

It’s OK, but you can do better.  Unless you are booking a sub-£100 hotel, your return is unlikely to exceed 6.25% assuming:

• you value an Avios at 1p and
• Nectar points convert to Avios in a 1 : 0.625 ratio

Your return is decent at cheap properties (a £60 hotel earning 1,000 Nectar points would be a 10% return) but there are not many of those to choose from. Once you get above £100 per night you will get 6.25% at best.

Even the main Rocketmiles site, which should have the same pricing, would probably give you more than 6.25% back if you took Virgin Points or Heathrow Rewards points. Remember that Heathrow Rewards points convert 1:1 into Avios.

Remember that you won’t earn hotel points or get status benefits

Remember that you won’t earn hotel points or receive status benefits on hotels booked via Nectar Hotels. This isn’t an issue at independent hotels, but is worth considering when booking a chain hotel.

You also need to factor in any bonus points on offer from the big chains. Hilton Honors is currently offering double points, for example. Even without a status bonus, a £100 stay would earn you:

• 1,080 base Hilton Honors points (£100 = £83 ex-VAT = $1.08 x 10 points per $1)
• 1,080 bonus points

…. for a total of 2,160 points. We’d value 2,160 Hilton points at around £7.20 based on 0.33p per point. This is a 7.2% return. If you had Hilton Honors status, which many HfP readers do, you would earn even more points via your status bonus and get your elite benefits too.

Importantly, Hilton Honors member pricing is likely to be cheaper than booking a Hilton property via a third party site.

The one upside is that Nectar Hotels is simple.  You aren’t messing about with joining a new loyalty scheme and you don’t need to do any further nights before you can redeem.  You can cash out your reward on your next visit to Sainsbury’s, even if you don’t want to move the points to Avios. If you are looking for a replacement for Hotels.com Rewards for occasional non-chain bookings, it may be worth a look.

The Nectar Hotels site is here.  If they do run a generous ‘first booking’ bonus at any time we’ll let you know.

PS. You can also spend Nectar points at Nectar Hotels. You get the same ‘0.5p per point’ rate as you get with other partners so – as you’d earn points if you paid cash – it’s best to save your points to use elsewhere.

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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:

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

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

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.

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