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Shopping portals and cashback sites have become enormously popular over the last few years. They offer a range of options and value depending on the scheme. The key point is that these portals will send you through to the site of the retailer in question, so you don’t pay any more for the goods. You just get a share in the commission that the portal receives (whether as cash, points or some other reward).

Accordingly, particularly where bonuses are included, these sites can offer a very decent rebate on your online spending. However, per my warning below, the key is to shop around on the portals first to see which offers best value for the retailer in question.

The Current BA “Easter Offers” Option

BA has an eStore shopping portal which offers a rebate on your spend in Avios. Until 18 April it is running an Easter bonus promo offering 200 bonus Avios on every spend over £120.

In addition, until varying dates in March and April, BA is offering up to double Avios (and indeed beyond) when you shop at certain sites.

Examples include (per £1 spend):

• Nike – was 4 now 8 Avios
• Selfridges – was 4 now 10 Avios
• Hotel Chocolat – was 3 now 6 Avios
• Harvey Nichols – was 6 now 14 Avios
• Argos – was 1 now 2 Avios (and beware here – using the more heavily promoted Nectar portal, you get one Nectar point per £1 spend, which is worth a mere 0.625 Avios)
• M&S – was 1 now 3 Avios
• Just Eat – was 1 now 25 Avios for new customers (3 Avios for existing)
• B&Q – was 2 now 4 Avios

At one point, when describing its Easter offers, BA refers to them as “egg-cellent”. If you wish to boycott using the BA eStore, cease booking its flights or even revoke your British citizenship on the basis of this alone, I fully support you.

For the record, my “go to” option is TopCashback. It invariably offers market-leading value, and “hard cash” is a pretty flexible currency. You can also cash out into Avios, with each penny of cashback getting you 1.05 Avios.

Comparing value

As noted above, to determine whether it’s worth shopping with BA Shopping, you should do a little bit of homework. My tip would be to compare BA, at the very least, to what’s available on TopCashback. There’s even a notable example below of a retailer (Just Eat) where it’s better to go with TopCashback if you’re a new customer, but BA if you’re an existing customer.

If we value an Avios at 0.8 pence, which I think is fair if slightly miserly, the BA eStore to TopCashback comparison, on the examples above, is as follows (per £1 spent):

• Nike – BA 6.4p/Topcashback 6p
• Selfridges – BA 8p/Topcashback 6p
• Hotel Chocolat – BA 4.8p/Topcashback 3p
• Harvey Nichols – BA 11.2p/Topcashback 16p
• Argos – BA 1.6p/Topcashback zero earnings
• M&S – BA 2.4p/Topcashback 3p
• Just Eat – BA 20p/Topcashback 25p (new customers) or BA 3p/Topcashback 1p (existing customers)
• B&Q – BA 3.2p/Topcashback 2.2p

Don’t forget that where the spend is over £120 with BA, you’ll also get 200 extra Avios. That’s unlikely in itself to tip the balance either way, but it’s worth noting – particularly where BA already beats TCB.

(Cover image courtesy of britishairways.com)