The Ultimate Guide To Earning Avios For Small Businesses

How to maximise your Avios earning opportunities as a small business

Running a small business is hard. One of the perks is that it’s easier to earn points than as a consumer, and those points can lead to business or first-class business travel. The vast majority of business expenses could earn you points and with minimal effort.

Small business, big Avios earning potential

If you’re the owner or director of a small business, there are many ways to earn Avios. For the last five years, I’ve been leveraging every opportunity to increase our pot of points. In my opinion, it’s far easier for businesses than consumers simply because more money passes through a business.

When I started collecting Avios points, I kept it simple, but as time passed, I learned about (or stumbled across) new ways to collect points. This article contains everything I’ve picked up over the last five years.

Tip #1 – Points On BA Flights

This is an obvious one, but the reality is that most small businesses don’t travel a lot by plane. When they do, it’s more likely to be on the airline that gets them somewhere fastest and cheapest. Having said that, if you travel a lot and do so via BA, making sure that your frequent flyer number is attached to the booking is critical.

Utilising BA’s On Business scheme will also allow you to double dip: earning both Avios and OnBusiness points. The scheme works across BA, Iberia and American Airlines. It also has a pretty poor reputation, and it’s not just because the website looks like it was built twenty years ago. There have been long periods where the back end was inaccessible. For a small number of businesses, this is going to be useful. For most, it won’t be.

On Business is a separate rewards scheme from Avios. The more you fly, the more points you get. Rewards are based on the amount spent on the flight, and those starting out on the scheme will earn 1 point per £1 spent. If you spend more than £30,000 on flights each year, then you’ll earn 1.25 points, and for the really big spenders (£300,000/year), you’ll earn 1.5 points per £1.

To give you an idea of the redemptions possible with On Business points, 2,200 points would give you enough points to fly to Paris in Economy. 22,000 points (so £22k in travel spend) is enough for a return Premium Economy flight to Dubai. For most SME’s On Business will be a faff, but for some it could be quite lucrative.

The points you earn will expire at the end of the next year, meaning that points will remain active and usable for between 12 and 24 months.

Tip #2 – Earnings Avios Via Credit Cards

This is a big one. There are a number of business credit cards that can earn Avios, and some of those cards reward you with bonuses, both at sign-up and throughout the year.

All of the points-earning business cards, except one, have a cost attached, so the first question is; do you want to pay for a card, and if so how much are you willing to pay?

The cheapest card that earns your business Avios points used to be the £99/year Capital On Tap “basic” card. That was a great and low-cost option. COT now has two card options: their free card, which allows you to earn Avios, and the “pro” card at £299/year, which also comes with perks (IMHO, they are not worth it). The free card is an absolute no-brainer, assuming you are approved for it.

Stricly speaking the COT card earns “points” which you can convert into Avios at a 1:1 ratio. You can also convert the points into gift cards which values the points at a health 1p. It is actually one of the most efficient card reward schemes when it comes to gift cards.

The Amex Gold card is the second cheapest option for a business, costing £195/year. The most expensive points-earning card is the Amex Platinum, which costs £650/year. In between is the Amex British Airways Accelerating Business Card, which costs £250/year.

The Amex Gold and Platinum cards earn Membership Reward points rather than Avios but you can transfer those at a 1:1 rate. The transfer is pretty quick and very easy.

Comparing the annual fees of Business Credit Cards

What Additional Ongoing Bonuses Can You Get

At the time of writing, the Amex Platinum card offers a bonus of 10,000 Avios for every month that you spend over £10k on the card.

If you spend £10k/month on that card you’ll be earning the equivalent of 2 Avios per £1 spent. That’s a market-leading rate..

If you can hit that spent level, then you will be earning 2 MR points, equal to 2 Avios points, for every point you spend.

The Amex Gold Card will give you a bonus of 10,000 points each quarter if you spend over £20k. This is considerably less valuable than the Platinum monthly bonus, however there is a big difference in the annual fee. Running both cards side by side makes sense if you can afford it and have the required spend levels.

Note that I’m saying “points” rather than “Avios Points” for those two cards. The cards reward you with Amex Membership Reward points, which you can convert into Avios at a 1:1 rate. Having Membership Reward points gives you much more flexibility. You can convert these into Avios, or you can convert them to other airline points schemes.

One of the biggest learnings is that you need to be able to get points into other airlines’ schemes.

This opens up more opportunity – either booking a return flight via a different airline from BA, or just one of the legs.

UK Business Amex cards with ongoing bonuses

What’s the points earning rate for each card?

Not all points earning cards are created equally, but most have the same earning rate. Amex Gold and Platinum will give you one Membership Reward point per full pound you spend.

Spending £1.99 will give you one point. Spending £2.00 will give you two points. The Capital On Tap cards are the same: One COT point for every pound you spend, rounded down.

The only card with a higher earn rate is the Amex BA Accelerating Business card, which will give you 1.5 Avios per £1 you spend.

What perks do you get with the cards?

Apart from the Accelerating Business card, each of the Amex credit cards comes with benefits, and the Capital On Tap pro card comes with it’s own unique perks.

Perks of the Amex Platinum card

The Amex Platinum card has the strongest benefits of all the cards. It’s also the most expensive card. I’ve been a cardholder for just over a year now, and if you travel, these perks can offer real value. I’m not sure if there’s £650 of value.

• If you have a Hilton Honours membership, it will be upgraded to Gold. The most valuable perk of Gold (IMHO) is that you and anyone in your room will get free breakfast. This is genuinely valuable if you book a room that doesn’t already include breakfast. You also get other perks: more points when you stay with Hilton and potential room upgrades (I have never had this happen to me).
• If you have a Marriot or Raddison membership then it will be upgraded to Marriot Gold (earn more points, potential for room upgrades) or Radisson Premium (earn more points, potential for room upgrades).
• A £200 travel credit at Amex Online Travel
• Complimentary access to 1,400 airport lounges, including the American Express Centurion Lounges. There is some value in this perk, but the predominantly US-based Centurion Lounges aren’t particularly impressive.
• £150 in Dell Credits each year (£75 to be spent in Jan to June, £75 to be spent in Jul to Dec). This is a very easy reward to redeem – just activate the reward on the Amex site, buy from Dell and the first transaction in that period will have £75 taken off.
• Access “The Hotel Collection”. This is a selection of 1,000 hotels that will offer perks to Amex cardholders. These include 12noon check-in, late check-out and a room upgrade, although these are listed as “when available”. You’ll receive a $100 credit to use when you pre-pay for two nights or more.
• A subscription to The Times. I find this pretty useful. I swapped my FT subscription for The Times and ended up saving money.
• “Over £200 a year in partner discounts”. These are offers that appear in the Amex app or on the website and are specific to you and your card. There can be some good discounts available, either offering cashback, discounts or extra Membership Reward points.
• £300/year Indeed statement credit. If you use Indeed to advertise jobs this is useful, and it gives you a £75 discount on an Indeed bill every quarter.

Perks of the Amex Gold card

• £100 a year in Dell credits each year (£50 to be spent in Jan to June, £50 to be spent in Jul to Dec).
• Access the same “The Hotel Collection” perk for the Platinum card.
• The same partner discounts as the Platinum card.

Perks of the Capital On Tap Pro card

• Unlimited access to airport lounges (over 1,800 listed) for the cardholder only
• Two free guest passes for airport lounges each year
• If you have a Radisson Rewards account this will be upgraded to VIP status

So, which card should you actually get?

There’s no perfect combination of cards, but I’d suggest that you look at the Capital On Tap free card first, then the Amex Gold card.

The COT free card is a no-brainer. It costs you nothing, earns Avios points, and is more widely accepted than Amex. It’s also free to add employee cards and virtual cards. The latter can be especially useful if you put a lot of paid media through your business (e.g. Google Ads, Meta ads).

I’d advise you to get the Amex Gold as your second card. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, you collect Membership Reward points rather than Avios points.

Yes, you can swap them to Avios on a 1:1 basis, but you can also swap them to other airlines, giving you flexibility. It’s the cheapest “premium” card, and it has a healthy signup bonus (60k MR points at the time of writing) AND quarterly bonuses (10k of extra MR points every quarter if you spend over £20k).

The Gold card has a small number of perks that help bring that annual cost down: we use the £100/year in Dell credits and there are regular discounts or savings in the Amex Offers section of the app and website. It’s entirely possible to get discounts, which means your annual fee is effectively free.

Should you have more than one card?

American Express isn’t accepted everywhere, so having a Visa or Mastercard can be helpful. There’s only one non-Amex business card that allows you to collect Avios points, and that’s the Capital On Tap card. The decision for us to get this card was easy when it was £99/year.

That same card is now effectively free for new customers, so it’s a no brainer. We do end up putting quite a high level of spend through the card, and amassing a lot of points.

Credit cards – a critical note

Some business credit cards require a director, or all directors, to accept liability for the spending. This is something that you should consider seriously and potentially take advice on. The worst-case scenario is that your business goes under, and you have to pay off whatever is outstanding on the cards.

When times are good it’s easy to overlook your liabilities. My advice is to always think about the worst case scenario when it comes to finances.

Tip #3 – Avios Hotels

I’ve written about how Avios Hotels works. In short, it’s an incredibly easy way to earn Avios points from hotel bookings.

The Avios Hotels site looks and acts like a hotel aggregator like Hotels.com or Expedia. In fact, it’s driven driven by the latter. The prices are roughly the same as any other hotel booking website, sometimes cheaper, and you can earn 10 Avios per £1 you spend.

If you’re booking hotels for work, then even a cheap one-nighter will bag you 1,000 Avios. Longer work trips for you and your colleagues could net you tens of thousands of Avios. I’ve been using it for years on personal hotel bookings, and it’s a reliable way to increase your Avios balance.

What are the downsides to booking through Avios Hotels?

There aren’t many. If you’re price sensitive it’s worth checking what the Avios Hotels website is quoting vs other platforms. If you are a member of a hotel loyalty scheme, then you won’t get any perks or points for booking via an aggregator – those only happen if you book directly with the hotel.

You do have to wait between 90 and 120 days after your stay for the Avios to appear in your account. 100% of the bookings I’ve made have ended up giving me points, so it’s a reliable system.

Tip #4 – Avios Shopping Website

I’ve written extensively about the Avios Shopping site. It’s an easy way to earn a significant number of points and covers thousands of stores.

There’s a specific grouping of points-earning stores for “Office & Business” which lists 84 different retailers, however there are many more in other categories that a business could buy from, and earn points.

The earning potential is huge. Viking Direct (for which you can also earn points via Nectar at the same time) is usually 5 points per £1 (at the time of writing, there’s an offer to boost that to 7/£). Vistaprint will give you 8 Avios per £. Dell will give you 8 Avios per £.

There’s a lot of potential for earning points on the Avios Shopping website, and it’s easy to use and effectively free.

What are the downsides to Avios shopping?

The most frustrating aspect of Avios Shopping is that some (perhaps 1 in 10) of your purchases won’t result in your getting any Avios. These tend to be particular brands (Hilton is particularly bad), and it’s usually down to you not completing the transaction immediately.

Avios Shopping tracks the transaction using cookies, and if you visit a brand’s website from an advert or even directly from a Google Search, the link back to Avios could be wiped.

If you were always going to buy something online, then you could argue that you’re not really losing anything if your transaction gets declined for points. The reality is that it always feels annoying when this happens.

Tip #5 – Nectar Points

You can convert Nectar points to Avios at a rate of 400 Nectar points to 250 Avios points. You might think that Nectar points are for consumers. There is a very small group of business-focused points-earning partners for Nectar, plus if you buy provisions for your office from Sainsbury’s, you can pick up small amounts of points.

At present, Nectar lists just two partners related to businesses: Viking Direct and Dulux Decorating Centre. The latter will only be of interesting to a small group of SMEs.

Viking Direct

If you order stationary or office supplies, then Viking Direct can reward you directly with Nectar points (that you can then convert into Avios). The earning rate is 1 point per £1 spent, and points are given automatically when you enter your Nectar number in the Viking Direct portal. Enter it once, and every future order will credit Nectar points to your account.

You can – at the same time – earn 5 Avios points per £1 you spend with Viking Direct via the Avios Shopping website.

Paying on an Avios/points earning credit card will add 1 to 1.5 points per £1 spent. We use Viking to order drinks for the office and replenish tea and coffee. Each order gives us a good chunk of points across the two platforms (Avios and Nectar).

There are some other “consumer” partners that you could earn points from as a business – Habitat for office furnishings, 123-reg for domains and hosting, Acer for laptops along with hotel partners. Nectar has far fewer stores listed than the Avios Shopping website, but it can be leveraged in certain situations (e.g. Viking Direct).

Tip #6 – Paid Media Spend via credit cards

If your business pays Google, Meta, TikTok, or a similar service, you could put this cost on a points-earning credit card. That can also help cash flow as it pushes that bill out by 30ish days.

All paid media channels accept American Express and Capital On Tap cards. There are some minor downsides to migrating your advertising spend to your credit cards through

1. Meta (Facebook and Instagram) are particularly sensitive to card changes, and they only allow a limited number of accounts to be set up on each credit card.
2. If you have an invoicing agreement with Google then you won’t get any cashflow benefit from moving the spend onto a credit card. It will also mean more effort as instead of reconciling a single invoice each month, you’ll end up with multiple invoices and payments.

For some businesses their second or third highest cost each month is their advertising, so it can be lucrative to switch this to a credit card.

Can you put PAYE or VAT through an Avios earning credit card?

In short, yes. HMRC do not accept American Express for payments, nor do they allow you to use a personal credit card. You can pay HMRC using a business credit card, or there are third party services that will allow you to pay using your Amex for a fee.

I wrote more about paying HMRC using credit cards; the long and the short is that it’s deeply inefficient due to the fees levied by either HMRC or third parties. It will cost you more than it would to buy the Avios.

In conclusion: SMEs and earning points

Most small businesses will spend more money each month than a typical consumer, so leveraging that spend for points can bring real benefits.

There are some options above that will cost you nothing except a little bit of time, but could deliver tens of thousands of points.

When it comes to credit cards the annual card fees are allowable expenses (assuming that the card is used wholly for business purposes and do check with your accountant on treatment). That means the cost will reduce your corporation tax.