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 vary by tens of thousands of Avios depending on which airline you book through. London to Bangkok in business class, for example, is 110,000 Avios on BA but 75,000 via Qatar. That's 70,000 Avios saved on a return, just by knowing where to look. Our new calculator compares all six in one search, for any route and any cabin. As far as we know, nobody else has built this.

We've also launched an Amex eligibility checker that handles income thresholds and the 24-month rule across all nine UK personal cards, and there's a 30% bonus on Tesco Clubcard to Virgin Points exchanges running until June, though you'll need to switch off auto-exchange first, or you'll miss it. BA Holidays has a 33% Avios boost until 18 May, Qatar Airways is cracking down on Avios fraud in a way that could lock you out of the best award seats if you don't act, and I cleared out my inbox of all the offers that had been piling up, from 45,000 bonus Virgin Points to free Disney dining, there's something for everyone in there.

Sam

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.

You can check it out here.

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, which you can read all about here.

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. We have written everything there is to know on this offer here.

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 I have created 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!

Check out all of these offers here.

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.

To find out the details, and you will absolutely want to be prepared for the, you can go to the article here.

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. Read all about how it works, and how to find it on the website.

Points Well Made is a passion project from Sam and Helena. If you've enjoyed this and want to help us keep the lights on, please consider buying us a Ko-fi or subscribing monthly. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok for more of the same. Thanks for reading.