How can you cash out your points?
Turning points into gift cards isn’t an efficient use of them, but there are a few reasons why you’d want to do it. You may have Avios that you no longer need. Or you might have so many Avios that you can’t use them all. Whatever your reason, here’s how to get value from them.
The Bad News when directly converting Avios into gift cards
There’s only one gift card you can convert Avios points into, and that’s a digital gift card for “LeShuttle”, the train that runs from the UK to France. Chances are, when you thought about turning points into gift cards, you weren’t thinking about using them for this.
If you were, then the swap rate is around 1,000 Avios for £5 of value. You can select the cash value you want on the card in increments, and it’ll tell you how many Avios you need here.
There is currently no direct way to swap Avios points for gift cards, but it is possible to transfer them indirectly.
(For most people) The Irrelevant News: Swap Avios to Qatar, then to Meera
Meera Rewards is a points scheme run by the Al Meera supermarket chain in Qatar. You can swap a minimum of 3,250 Avios for 5,000 Meera reward points. Meera points are valued at 0.01 QAR (100 points is 1 QAR). That means 100 points are worth approximately 20p.
If you were to move 3,250 Avios, that would equate to £10 of value, but that’s assuming you could use the points in Qatar. If you live there, or you’re thinking of travelling there, then it might be a solution for you.
BPme rewards won’t work.
You can swap BPme rewards for gift cards. The range is limited, but the retailers they do have are popular: Amazon, M&S. You can also swap the points for a Love2Shop voucher . The latter allows you to spend that voucher in hundreds of different shops across the UK. I’ve had one of their cards in the past, and it was a little fiddly to use online.
Unfortunately, points transfers are a one-way street with BPme rewards. You can move those points into Avios, but not the other way around. If you could, then that would have been a simple and easy solution for converting Avios into a gift card.
Slightly better news: Swapping via Nectar
Swapping your Avios points to Nectar points will allow you to realise some value from the points at Sainsbury’s, Argos or Esso. If you’re based in the UK, then it’s likely that you have one of those stores near you.
Avios convert to Nectar points at a 1:1 ratio, and you can convert as little as 400 points. Each month, you can move up to 80,000 Nectar points into your Avios account, or 50,000 Avios into your Nectar account.
- At Sainsbury’s, 500 Nectar points are worth £2.50. 10,000 Avios points are worth £50 in vouchers
- Argos has the same spend rate: 500 Nectar points is equal to £2.50 at Argos.
- Esso is a lot more restrictive. You can swap 300 points for a 5p per litre discount (on the first 60 litres of fuel).
The best(ish) option: Convert your Avios to Marriott Points
You can convert Avios (via Qatar) at a 2:1 rate to Marriott. The minimum transfer of 1,000 points would get you 500 Marriott points. Marriott has a “shop with your points” page here that gives you a wealth of gift card options that you can buy using their points.
They start at 5,000 Marriott points for a £5 voucher. 10,000 points will get you a £10 voucher.
That earn rate means that 10,000 Avios will get you a £5 voucher. I would value 10k Avios points at £100 (you can read more about how I value Avios points). That means you are leaving a lot of value on the table, but that’s a decision for you to make.
How to transfer Avios points to Marriott points
As you’d expect with moving Avios between multiple websites, there are a few steps in this process.
If you want to use Avios in your BA account, you’ll need to link your Avios.com account and a Qatar Privilege Club account. To move Avios to Qatar, you use the “transfer, move and combine Avios” page. Select Qatar Airways Privilege Club. Enter the number of points you want to transfer. There is no minimum transfer amount, and you can move any number of points. The transfer to Qatar will be instant.
Head to the Qatar Airways website and log in to your account. Visit the Marriott transfer page and enter the number of points you want to move. If you haven’t already linked your Marriott Bonvoy account and your Qatar Privilege club account, you’ll need to do this.
The transfer time is quoted as an astonishing eight weeks. This seems excessive, but since I haven’t done this type of transfer before, I’m unable to tell you if it’s any faster. Points transfers do tend to be faster than the quoted time.
Conclusion
Transferring Avios points into gift cards isn’t easy. The best option for speed is to move your points to Nectar and then spend them at Sainsbury’s or Argos, but if you want to access a whole range of gift cards, then try the Marriott option. It’s more fiddly and slower, though.
Swapping your points for gift cards will never get you the most value from them. Even the transfer from Amex points to gift cards (which is a much easier process) offers a poor value per point.
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