So, the wait for a Tesco Clubcard to Avios transfer bonus goes on. It has now been two years since any sort of conversion bonus was offered. Instead, there are more uninspiring competitions running on Clubcard conversions to both British Airways Executive Club and avios.com (more on those shortly).
Luckily, Virgin Atlantic doesn’t seem to be experiencing a similarly dry spell and are offering a transfer bonus this quarter.
Get a 20% bonus on transfers from Clubcard to Virgin Atlantic
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is offering a 20% transfer bonus when converting Tesco Clubcard points to Virgin Flying Club miles this winter.
Details of this deal are visible on the ‘Partner news and offers’ section of the Virgin website.
Oddly enough, the Virgin Atlantic page on the Tesco website makes no reference to the bonus. On reflection, I’m not all that surprised seeing as the Tesco website still directs you to join Virgin Atlantic Flying Club using a link that no longer exists! Given the 20% bonus is explicitly mentioned on the Virgin website, you should have no qualms about receiving the extra miles.
Another 1,000 free miles possible?
For a while, there was an offer of 1,000 Virgin miles when you set your account to automatically convert your Tesco vouchers into Virgin miles.
Personally, I don’t generally auto-convert my vouchers. As I explained in this article, it makes sense to keep flexible points currencies such as Tesco Clubcard points where they are, in order to keep your options open.
This needn’t be a reason to give up on 1,000 free miles though. Anecdotal evidence suggests that you can turn this on and then off again a short while later after the 1,000 miles post to your Virgin account. Just be careful to do this in enough time to ensure your next batch of vouchers don’t ‘accidentally’ auto-convert if you don’t want them to.
It also seems that Tesco/Virgin don’t limit this to strictly one bonus per account. This is most definitely anecdotal and not guaranteed of course but you may want to experiment with turning this on and off again even if you’ve received the 1000 bonus miles before….
Note: This offer isn’t mentioned on either the Tesco or Virgin websites. There is no guarantee that these miles will materialise. However, provided you remember to turn off the auto-conversion in advance of the quarter’s end, you have nothing to lose by giving this a go.
The alternative: Win a share of 1 million Avios or a luxury break in Vienna
Unfortunately, if you prefer to convert your Clubcard vouchers to Avios, there isn’t much to get excited about. Both British Airways Executive Club and avios.com are running separate competitions this quarter.
Avios.com
The following prizes are on offer:
- 2 winners of 50,000 Avios
- 3 winners of 25,000 Avios
- 150 winners of 5,500 Avios
For every £2.50 of Clubcard vouchers that you convert between 1st November and 30th November 2017, you will automatically receive one entry into the prize draw.
You can find more details on this page of the Avios website.
British Airways Executive Club
The BA competition is particularly drab. For every £5 of Clubcard vouchers that you convert before 8th November and 31st December 2017, you will receive an automatic entry into a prize draw.
If your account is set to auto-convert to Avios, you will receive double entries into the draw for every £5 exchanged.
The prize consists of two return British Airways Club Europe flights to Vienna with a three-night stay at a choice of 5* hotels on a bed and breakfast basis. The winner can choose between the following hotels: Intercontinental 5*, Gran2 Hotel Wien 5*, Palais Hansen Kempinski Vienna 5*.
The small print is also pretty restrictive with the trip having to take place between 1/2/2018 and 31/3/2018.
Should you take advantage of the Virgin bonus?
I have written before about the benefits of waiting to convert flexible points currencies until a transfer bonus comes along, for maximum benefit.
Is this offer as good as bonuses ever get? In a word, no.
In the past, there have been 30% and even 50% bonuses offered to convert Clubcard points to Virgin Flying Club. Will those ever return? Who knows – what I would say is this: if you have a need to convert some Clubcard points to Virgin miles in the short term, this bonus is a solid extra.
If however, you have no pressing need to move these points to Virgin, I would wait to see if a larger bonus will materialise in due course.
Verdict
Transfer bonuses of any kind are always welcome – even if they are a far cry from what they once were. Nevertheless, 20% is not to be sniffed at and at least Virgin is offering a conversion bonus, rather than yet another lacklustre competition!
I won’t be speculatively converting, but if you were waiting for a bonus of sorts to come along before transferring to Virgin, this is a decent enough incentive.
Offer details can be found on the Virgin website here.