 Poster: A snowHead
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Thus a new referred member can now generate £55 of Tesco clubcard points in their 1st year, which can be transferred to BA avios, generating 13,200 Avios !
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where would those Avios points take you? I did transfer some Tesco points into Avios when there was a good offer. But £55 in Tesco points will get you a return on Eurotunnel.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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pam w,
9000 Avios gets you a return flight to most popular ski destinations. 28,000 + about £200 got me four return flights to Innbruck next Christmas.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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pam w, I get 2 return flights for two people each year MAN/LGW/TRN/ZRH by converting tesco points to avios.
Use your GreenPoints and Tesco Points to their maximum on conversion to Avios. The point is to convert your spending in Tesco's to the maximum Avios mileage possible.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| feef wrote: |
| Amex isn't widely enough accepted, especially in Europe, for it to be worthwhile getting one. As it happens, my TSB account came with an Amex card anyway, not that I can see myself using it. |
I agree that many smaller retailers/restaurants don't take amex, but most large chains do such as all the supermarkets, boots, homebase, John Lewis. If most of your spending is done with major household names, chances are most of them will take Amex.
Virtually all my spend is done on Amex, and I live in a rural part of the UK. Tesco is particularly good, you get Tesco points for the spend, and then you get 2 MR points per pound spent on the amex gold card (in the first year).
Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Mon 26-05-14 19:01; edited 2 times in total
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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With the TSB cards, I'll collect 1 Avios on every £1 spent on the Avios AMEX and 1 Avios for every £5 of eligible spend on the Avios MasterCard. That, plus the Tesco and Shell avios points collection is sufficient for me
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Thing is, I rarely fly anywhere these days. And I cross the channel with Eurotunnel at least four times a year.
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You can use Avios on Eurostar, but not the Eurotunnel. I did used to use my Tesco vouchers for free tunnel crossings, but the tunnel is so cheap in comparison to flights, that I don't really worry about that now
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How would the costs/timings stack up if you got the Eurostar to say Lille then hired a car to finish the journey?
I don't remember that being discussed before so probably a non-starter.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| musher wrote: |
How would the costs/timings stack up if you got the Eurostar to say Lille then hired a car to finish the journey?
I don't remember that being discussed before so probably a non-starter. |
You'd probably be looking at about £150 for the car hire and around another £300 for fuel and tolls.
Lille is so far north you're not gaining much, and Eurostar is quite a bit more expensive than the eurotunnel, so I doubt you'd gain much.
Tunnel would be what, £160 return for your own car, pay a bit more for the 1 hr of fuel and tolls between Calais and Lille and you've already broken even without having had to pay the Eurostar costs or have the hassle of having to lug luggage around various train stations.
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I tend to be focused on Avios collecting and thus my initial thought is to convert tesco Clubcard points to Avios.
However, if eurotunnel is what you are looking for, then Tesco has partnered with eurotunnel. Every £5 of tesco Clubcard vouchers gets you £15 off a eurotunnel booking. Delivery of the money-off ecode is by email, you place your order on the tesco Clubcard website, and within an hr you'll have an eurotunnel ecode that you can quote when phoning up to book your eurotunnel.
My TOPCASHBACK primer, shows you how to get £50 of Tesco clubcard vouchers for an outlay of £10. It goes on to explain that this can get you 12,000 Avios, but in this case you would be keeping them as Clubcard points. There is a X3 boost when converting Clubcard points to eurotunnel, so that £50 of CC points will get you £150 off a eurotunnel booking.
Until 18th of August, if you sign up via my TCB referral, you will get an extra £5 of cashback, when you generate £10 of your own cashback. In total therefore, there is the ability to get enough CC points to get a £165 Eurotunnel discount, all for an outlay of £10,
Note that there is no limit on how long it takes you to generate the cashback, the key is you have to sign up before the 18th of August.
http://www.goingonrewards.com/p/getting-12000-avios-for-free-each-each.html
And of course, if you and your partner each have a Tesco account, you can each sign up for a TCB account and get 2 lots of £165 Eurotunnel discount, although only one discount code can be used per booking. The ecodes must be used for journeys starting in Folkstone, so unfortunately, you can't use two separate ecodes to book a return using 2 one-way bookings.
"Every little helps" as they say.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Tangey, Another inexpensive way to collect at least 12000 miles per year is to recycle used ink cartridges. You can recycle up to 100 cartridges each year, some worth 50 Tesco Points, some worth 100 Tesco Points. Buy as cheap as you can from Ebay the "virgin used" cartridges (usually 100 cartridges will cost between £15 to £20 with some canny bidding), as long as they are on Tesco Recycling list of accepted empty ink cartridges. Check out Tesco Recycling Factory. 
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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I've done a few hundred ink carts in total, but this last year or more it is getting harder to find value in that channel. The official recycling partner keeps reducing the acceptable cartridges, and also reduces the points, some carts only get 25 points. The most recent list of acceptable cartridges is now very small. There is also a risk of them changing the list after you have committed to purchase.
The cartridges they now accept are relatively expensive on eBay. There was a time you could buy a bulk lot of 100 carts for around £50, which would have gotten you a quick £100 of cc points. Now you have to buy in dribs and drabs and also I find the value isn't there.
The nice thing about the topcashback route, is that it's about 15 mins of work, plus £10, for a guaranteed £55 of Clubcard points.
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Tangey, I've bought about 170 plus cartridges HP364 for under £45 in total. 100 of those cartridges were under £20 plus £3.50 P&P. That's 12000 miles for less than £25. AND.... I still got 70 cartridges left for next year beginning March 2015. Make me an offer for my remaining cartridges, as I'm half tempted to put them back on Ebay seeing as their "value" has increased as you say.
In fact at the moment Ebay has some excellent deals on Buy-it-Now HP 364 Empty cartridges. 100 for £25 plus £6 P&P, and 50 empty cartridges for £12.50 plus £3.50 P&P. BOTH those examples are current listings and well worth someone buying them just for the extra Avios they can generate through Tesco Recycling points.
(edit for second para.)
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Hells Bells, Looks like I'll be donating to Diabetes UK then!! BTW........... I'm Type 2! Still got 12000 miles this year from my less than £45.......still a bargain! 
I'll do a recce on Ebay and Tesco recycling for best value recycling points!
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Poster: A snowHead
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Tangey, Hells Bells, Already sussed out the next set of value for money cartridges. Looks like the same cost as the HP 364 cartridges pro rata per Avios points. And Hells Bells, teaches me to regularly check the recycling factory website 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I know many that have been caught with Carts when TRF no longer takes them, hence my earlier warning.
If you find a cart that works for you, best of luck, just don't get caught out.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Skimastaah, I don't know when you sent in your 364s, but prior to being totally withdrawn, they were only generating 50 points each, having dropped from 100 points each almost a year ago.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Skimastaah,
Yeah, with 364s being withdrawn, you'll be getting 100 points for any cart you recycle next year. If you can get them @ the same ratio, say £90 for 100 carts, you'll end up paying the same cheap price per avios that you did with the 364s, but you'll get yourself twice the amount of those cheap Avios. So whereas last year, cashing in 364s limited you to £50 of clubcard points (because you can only recycle 100 a year), next year, you will be able to get yourself £100 of points, transferrable into 24,000 Avios.
There was a time a couple of years back, that 364s got you 100 points, and you could by a 100 of them for less than £60.
Other cheapish ways of getting Avios is the TopCashBack route that I have mentioned previously, an easy £50 of Tesco clubcard points for £10.
If you watch online movies, also consider signing up for blinkbox. They are owned by tescos and do regular cc points promotions. At the moment, if you "buy" spiderman 2, for £9.99 you get 500 club card points. There is a way you can leverage this offer to get 2400 Avios for around £7. The following article was written for a similar Blinkbox promotion for the Lego Movie, but the theory applies to this spiderman movie.
http://www.goingonrewards.com/2014/07/2400-cheap-avios-5-with-blinkbox-and.html
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Quick question, I am looking at some flights for next july, I need to buy 10,000 Avios to get what I need for all 4 family members.
Is there a quick and cheaper way to do that rather than buy them via BA? I will have used all my Tesco points already.
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I have a BA Avios Amex for everything I can get away with, and Lloyds Avios CC for those occasions where you cant use amex. I also convert my tesco vouchers (save them until the double up offers are on) and Shell cards points are converted to avios too.
The points really add up and I get at never have to pay for my ski holiday flight and the Lloyds CC gives you upgrade vouchers too.
How I find it works well for me is:
Tesco and Esso Fuel stations accept tesco clubcard
Shell Fuel
Lloyds CC - spend 7K a year and get an upgrade voucher
BA Amex - spend 20K a year and get a double up on flights.
I buy through avios e-store (only when cheaper)
I only travel in europe so points go a long way.
Take a look here http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/boost-avios-points
Simples
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PaulC1984, yeh I have the BA Avios Amex already thanks  and used the double up voucher for flights to the USA next summer!!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Tesco points would be the best way. All the ways I outlined above in the post of the 20th of Aug would get you tesco points, however any you earn now won't be convertible to Avios until some time in November when the tesco earning quarter ends, and that's likely too late for you. None of the estores such as Avios or BA estore will be any good to you, as they can take ages to post.
Buying 10K of Avios from BA will cost you £175.
Depending on exactly how quickly you need them, and if you have £1,000 of other spend to do shortly, you could take out the BA amex card. This gets you 9K bonus Avios when you spend £1,000 within the first 3 months. Provided you do the spend within the first couple of weeks of getting the card, those Avios would be transferred to your BA account within a few days of when the 1st month's credit card bill was generated. If you take out your card via a referral (which I can provide), then you'll get 10K avios instead of 9K. There is no annual fee for this card.
I'm not sure I know a way of getting 10K quicker, Unless of course you have 10K Amex MR points, or significant points with some hotel chains, most of which allow you to transfer to Avios. The returned value would be poor, but if you need them, you need them.
Last edited by You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net. on Wed 3-09-14 14:44; edited 4 times in total
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Tangey, ^^ This - it worked for me
Or if you are likely to use lots of point in future and likely to spend 3K in the first 3 months, pay the 150 a year annual fee for the BA Premium Amex and get 25000 bonus points (only you can work out if its a good deal for you based on spend)
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Other thought. If you have a paypal account, use your Amex card to pay it off rather than CC. That way if you are purchasing a product on a site that doesnt accept amex but does accept paypal, you still win
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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It looks like kitenski need the points in a hurry.
As the BA amex has already been applied for, then the obvious one to recommend is the amex gold card. It's free for the 1st year, and if you are recommended, you get 22K points which you can convert to 22K avios. You do have to spend £2K in the first 3 months to get the bonus. Again, I can refer if it is helpful, referral link is on the right hand side of my blog, the link for which is in my signature.
As long as you cancel before the anniversary date, it won't cost you anything.
Last edited by And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports. on Wed 3-09-14 14:49; edited 1 time in total
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You know it makes sense.
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8K avios costs £143.
Remember, if you have any virgin miles, these can be transferred to Hilton (2 miles to 3 points), which can then be transferred to Avios. You have to transfer a minimum of 10K virgin (into 15K hilton). It's an awful use of virgin miles, but if needs must...
You have to phone Virgin to do the transfer to Hilton.
Having a BA amex card doesn't exclude you from getting a bonus for taking out the Amex gold charge card.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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tangey...great info.....i ve had a few thousand avios i converted for a night at ME Hotel in london earlier this year.
still got some left over, and the BA AMEX charge card and GOld card seem too good an opportunity to pass up for collecting another 20k worth......
Will go via your site and apply
cheers
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Poster: A snowHead
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if anyone wants a referral for the BA card let me know, that's a sure fire way of me getting the necessary Avios
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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yes please
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Ebay ...................... 50 HP 377 empty carts are £50 or near offer. This equates to 5000 Tesco Points when recycled, which in turn gets you 12000 Avios. 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Does Tesco /Avios never do the extra miles anymore? I know a few years ago every so often they would give a bonus of sorts, can't remember what it was, but I think I read it on here and we converted at the time, but not seen it coming up again.
Sorry I'm not being very clear, it was a while ago, I just know the deal only came up once or twice a year, and I'm guessing one of you will know!
I've got £66 worth of Tesco which will convert to around 15k Avios at the moment, but wondering whether to just keep saving incase there is a bonus comes up?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Gilly28, very occasionally you get Clubcard bonus codes, but not as many as in the past. Last quarter there was one decent code (1,000 points) for online shopping, plus a good code from Blinkbox which gave up to 2000 points for £20 of ebooks. Codes for wine are normally available, typically 500 points for £100 order, and random things pop up from time to time (e.g. current Fisher Price toys code IIRC).
I've just converted my vouchers from last quarter as I don't think there will be a Clucard-Avios conversion bonus anytime soon, and had the highest number of Avios points in a long time (50,400). Spending the Avios points gets more tricky as reward availability seems to be increasingly limited, but just managed to get a couple of seat to Miami next summer so grateful to Tesco and Amex
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Ah just checked the beginning of this thread and found my original post on the bonus things. So does the 2000 per quarter bonus not happen any longer?
| Gilly28 wrote: |
Ah just had a look and think we qualify for the 2000 per quarter bonus, we got it in March. So if we convert Teco vouchers for 1500 each quarter we get a bonus of 2000 per quarter, so worthwhile doing that. In March they did an offer thing, so plan is to wait and see if there is an offer on at each quarter, if so convert the 1500 at time of offer and then we'd get the offer plus the 2000 bonus. If no offer just convert at end of quarter.
ie Up to end of August 50% extra offer - convert 1500 get 750 extra and also the 2000 bonus for the quarter.
Sound right? |
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Gilly28, not quite sure what that bonus is, but the Clubcard vouchers have a long expiry so why not hang on to them until you really need to convert to Avios?
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Gilly28, ........ I wish!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sadly Tesco have lost track of just why their client base were kind of there. And again sadly, the new BOSS of Tesco is reducing personnel costs (previous corporate strategy) rather than looking at retaining/improving existing client satisfaction. Explains Tesco under performance in a nutshell .......... Tesco rewards are nothing like they used to be! Simples.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| rob@rar wrote: |
| Gilly28, not quite sure what that bonus is, but the Clubcard vouchers have a long expiry so why not hang on to them until you really need to convert to Avios? |
Yes might do that, thinking I'd like to save them up this time and use to get business class /1st class flight. Something that we would never be able to afford.
Although, does anyone convert to Virgin miles? They are doing an offer of and extra 20% if done by 5th Sept. we are hoping to get to Florida next year, but as we also hope to go to Bali in the summer we need all the help we can get!
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Gilly28, do you have the BA-Amex card? It's a great way to build up your Avios total, and you can get a 2-for-1 voucher for booking Avios flights once you reach a certain spend threshold. Invaluable way of making the most of the Avios scheme.
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FAQ
