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We have frequently sung the praises of the rather wonderful tie-up between Avios and Nectar. It allows you to effectively earn Avios on your shopping, while it also lets you spend your Avios in Sainsburys (and others).

One of the very attractive initial elements to this partnership was the ability to instantly convert, online, between Avios and Nectar, and vice versa. You could just instantly ping points between the two at will, depending on your spending requirements.

However, this soon changed.

After a few weeks of operation, it appears that a number of fraudulent transactions led to the online conversion from Avios to Nectar being removed. You had to call to do it. The Nectar to Avios online conversion option remained.

It’s back

First the good news. You can now convert from Avios to Nectar, online.

However, it requires various authentication processes every time and, most disappointingly, it will take up to 10 days to update your balance.

Perhaps I’m just being grumpy, but that strikes me as utterly ridiculous. I am very much hoping 10 days is an absolute worst case scenario and transfers go through swiftly. I simply don’t understand why, if you’ve passed the multi-factor authorisation, it can’t be an instant balance update. Poor technology doesn’t appear to be a valid reason as Nectar to Avios is instant – heightened security consciousness perhaps, but I’m not impressed.

The process

Anyway, we don’t like to overly whinge on InsideFlyer (best left to Loyalty Lobby), so here’s a peaceful, calm guide through the process.

Firstly, go to Nectar.com and the Avios conversion page. The default setting is Nectar to Avios:

Tweak that to Avios to Nectar (obviously):

Next, confirm your date of birth:

Then, check your email:

Next, click on the link in your email:

You’ll then be told you’re a success story, which is very nice.

However, the warm glow of this compliment soon fades upon receipt of an email warning you it can take up to 10 days for the balances to update. 10 DAYS! You’ve successfully confirmed your date of birth and then clicked a link in your personal email – they need to just make the conversion.

Sumner’s Final Thought

Ultimately, this is slightly better than having to phone up to do it, but my enthusiasm at the return of this option has been massively dampened by the fiddly process and the length of time to update. We praised Avios and Nectar at the start for this wonderful ability to instantly transfer between accounts – that excellent advantage, sadly, has not returned.