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News you may have missed at Points Well Made - 24th May
Hello, I hope you've all had a good week! Thank you to all of you who messaged saying how much you enjoy using the new Avios Calculator, hopefully it'll save you all some time in the long run. Meanwhile, there have been some interesting goings on this week. The front end of the week saw offers if you bought Avios with Qatar and Finnair, so we did a little comparison piece compared with just paying for a cash ticket. We did a guide to how to book for three people with a compan

Helena
May 244 min read


FINAL DAYS: Up to 100,000 Membership Rewards points with the Amex Gold and Platinum
The boosted welcome bonuses on the Amex Gold and Platinum run out on Tuesday 26 May, leaving you only four days to decide if this is your time to get one. If you currently hold, or have held an Amex in the past, but are unsure which bonuses you're eligible for, then you should check out our free Amex eligibility tool to help you out. Points Well Made is here to dish out the juicy details on miles and points, but we're not your financial advisers. Any decisions you make regard

Sam
May 235 min read


BA raises the cash needed for Avios reward flights from 27 May - five days to book at current prices
British Airways is putting up the cash needed for Avios reward flights from 27 May 2026. The Avios required stay the same, as those already went up in December, but the cash element needed to pay the taxes and fees goes up. I literally wrote yesterday that I didn't believe BA had another foot to shoot. They had in fact kept one spare. Bookings made before 27 May hold the current price. From 27 May, you pay the new rate. So if you've got a trip in mind, you've got five days. I

Sam
May 223 min read


easyJet's new loyalty programme: what we know, and what we're guessing
Having been strongly rumoured for a while, easyJet have finally publicly announced that they are going to be launching their own loyalty programme in 2027. I say publicly, I don't know how many of you read financial results, because that's where they put it. This programme is not designed to replace easyJet Plus (which so many of you signed up to as your BA Club membership expired), but instead this new programme will complement it. Here is easyJet's full statement: Our susta

Sam
May 214 min read


BA Amex Companion Vouchers can now be used on British Airways Holidays bookings - here's when it makes sense
From today, you can now use your BA Amex Companion Voucher on British Airways Holidays packages and get 25% of your Avios back. This doesn't change how a Companion Voucher normally works on a Reward Flight booking, it's an additional way to use it, and a temporary one, running only until 31 March 2027. So is this a feature, or an offer? Who knows. Anyway, let me run you through it. How it works You book a British Airways Holidays package on the BA Holidays website. That's a F

Sam
May 205 min read


Can I use two BA Amex Companion Vouchers to book three people?
Congratulations. You've earned two Companion Vouchers from your BA Amex, or you're thinking about pushing for a second, and let's say that you want to book three seats for you, your partner, and a child (other groups of three are available). The logical solution seems obvious: use one voucher for two people (you + partner), use the second voucher for solo travel at 50% off (the child). Three seats, two vouchers, sorted. Except British Airways explicitly prohibits this. You ca

Sam
May 193 min read


Both Qatar and Finnair are running 50% buy Avios sales – here's how they compare
Qatar Airways and Finnair have both launched buy Avios sales, each with a top bonus of 50%, with Qatar's running until 25 May, and Finnair's running until 1 June, but the 50% rate only lasts until 22 May. So its a 50% bonus in both cases, but the price per Avios isn't the same. Here's how each offer works. Qatar Airways buy Avios offer Promotion period: 18 May to 25 May 2026 (23:59 Doha time) Where to buy: qatarairways.com Eligibility: Privilege Club members with at least 1 A

Sam
May 184 min read


News you may have missed at Points Well Made - 17th May
Hello, I hope you've all had a good week! Quick personal one; my sisters and I ran the Bristol Half Marathon last week for Pancreatic Cancer UK and raised over £3,000. Thank you to everyone who donated towards the appeal I made last Sunday. Back to business, the big one this week is a tool we've been building for months. Six airlines use Avios, BA, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Finnair, Qatar Airways, and Loganair, but they all price routes completely differently. The same city can var

Sam
May 174 min read


How many Avios do you need? We built the only calculator that compares every Avios airline, in one search
How many Avios do you actually need for a flight? It depends. British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Finnair, Qatar Airways and Loganair all use the Avios, but they charge wildly different amounts for the same route. Comparing them properly has, until now, meant clicking through different award charts and hoping you've worked it out correctly. So we built a tool that does it for you. The Avios Calculator: All Six Airlines, One Search compares how many Avios you need, across eve

Sam
May 164 min read


Qatar Airways cracks down on Avios fraud, here's what you need to do now!
Qatar Airways' Privilege Club is introducing some of the most significant loyalty programme security changes in years, and if you don't act now, you could find yourself locked out of the best award seats. To understand why, you need to know what's been happening across the wider Avios ecosystem, something we haven't really talked about until now. Avios fraud doesn't just effect Qatar Avios fraud has become one of the most persistent headaches in points world. The cross-progra

Helena
May 154 min read


My inbox was full of deals and offers, so here are the ones you should check out
I receive emails all the time regarding different offers from various companies promoting this or that. Well, they've built up and I didn't know what to do with them all (I couldn't even think of a good headline, suggestions in the comments please), so here is a rundown on some of the best offers I've been sent ranging from 45,000 bonus Virgin Points to free Disney dining, 25% off SAS reward flights, discounted Hilton points, and extra Nectar on your eBay shopping, enjoy! Ame

Sam
May 145 min read


BA Holidays offer: Pay with Avios is worth 33% more until 18 May
BA Holidays is running an Avios offer until 18 May: a 33% boost on the value of your Avios when used as part payment on a package. Or, framed the other way, you'll need 25% fewer Avios to get the same money off your holiday. Each of you may see slightly different offers in terms of value per Avios, but here's what I can see. Will your BA Holiday take you to the Maldives? How does this Avios bonus look We searched a 4-night economy trip to New York in January, which is one of

Sam
May 133 min read


30% bonus Virgin Points from your Tesco Clubcard vouchers, but you'll need to switch off auto-exchange
Virgin Red has launched a 30% bonus on Tesco Clubcard voucher exchanges, running from today until 30 June 2026. The bonus stacks on top of the standard 1 Clubcard point = 2 Virgin Points, meaning that 1,000 Clubcard points will come out as 2,600 Virgin Points instead of 2,000. But there's obviously a catch. Manual exchange only, and you've probably set them to auto-convert If you took advantage of the 5,000 Virgin Point sign-up bonus Virgin and Tesco ran a few times in the la

Sam
May 124 min read


Amex eligibility checker: which UK cards are open to you?
Amex's rules around who gets a welcome bonus aren't complicated. They're just a bit annoying. Income decides which cards you can apply for. The 24-month rule decides which welcome bonuses you'll actually receive. Our Amex eligibility checker handles both, for all nine UK personal Amex cards, in under a minute. How our Amex eligibility checker works Type in your personal income. Tell it whether you've held an Amex in the last 24 months. If you have, tick which ones, mark any s

Sam
May 113 min read


News you may have missed at Points Well Made - 10th May
Hello all of you, First off, today, myself and my two sisters, Bethan and Hannah, are running the Bristol Half Marathon today raising money for Pancreatic Cancer UK. Pancreatic cancer is one of deadliest forms of cancer as its usually only picked up once its too late to treat. This is exactly how it took the life of our Nana, Sue Pomeroy. Anything you can spare towards this worthy cause would be greatly appreciated. You can click here to donate towards Pancreatic Cancer UK. T

Sam
May 104 min read


Can I extend or gift my British Airways Amex Companion Voucher?
Your companion voucher is about to expire. You're not going to use it. Maybe life got in the way, maybe you couldn't find availability, maybe you just ran out of time. So can you extend it? Or give it to someone who will use it? Almost certainly not, and no. But there's more to it than that, so let's go through it properly. In this article: Can I extend my companion voucher? What qualifies for an extension? How do I apply for an extension? What if I don't qualify? Does the vo

Sam
May 95 min read


Up to 10,000 bonus Avios on the BA Amex for adding a free supplementary card
If this sounds familiar, that is because we covered the same offer on the Amex Gold and Platinum a few weeks ago. Amex has now dished the bonus out to the British Airways American Express cards too, meaning until 30 June 2026, you can earn up to 10,000 bonus Avios just for adding your first supplementary card. What is a supplementary card? A supplementary card is an extra card issued on your existing Amex account for someone else to use, usually a partner or family member. Th

Sam
May 83 min read


Virgin Atlantic axes Dubai, Seattle paused, South Africa boosted
Virgin Atlantic has confirmed it won't be operating its seasonal Heathrow-Dubai route this coming winter. The 2025/26 season was already cut short on 7 March due to the conflict in the region, so this is two consecutive winters of cancellations. Heathrow-Seattle is also being paused for the winter, returning in March 2027. Instead they're giving both Heathrow-Cape Town and Heathrow-Johannesburg extra flights this winter. Affected customers should start hearing from Virgin soo

Sam
May 73 min read


Win 1,000,000 Avios in BA and Amex's 25th anniversary prize draw
If you hold either of the British Airways American Express cards, there's a new competition in town. British Airways and American Express are continuing to mark 25 years of their partnership with an Avios competition. There's a 1,000,000 Avios top prize and a further 25 prizes of 100,000 Avios each up for grabs. 25 years of British Airways American Express cards These cards have been around longer than some of you, and to commemorate that, British Airways and American Express

Helena
May 63 min read


My experience of the new EU EES system at Faro (and why you shouldn't panic)
Everyone has heard the queue horror stories that have been rolling out in the last few weeks, 90-minute waits, missed flights, chaos at the gates. So when I'd booked a long weekend to the Algarve in late March for a friend's hen-do, I was braced for the worst, and totally prepared to document it for you all to see. What I got was something a lot more mundane: a functioning border with a 10-minute wait on arrival and 15 minutes on departure. There was part of that was a teens

Helena
May 57 min read
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