Natwest Myrewards - Avios

kieronkumar

On the Myrewards website there is a page advertising the option to trade up for Avios at a decent rate (5870 Avios for £50): https://www.natwest.com/myrewards/exchange/avios.html.

Offer supposedly ends 30th November, but I'm not seeing Avios as an option when trying to redeem either in their app or the website. Has anyone had any luck with this?

sausage_time

In the RBS app I can see £10 and £20 redemption for Avios (1170 and 2350).   So not £50 as such, but £10 and 2 X £20 would come to 5870.

artyboy

Technically, £20 gets you proportionately ever so slightly more Avios than £10 or £50, which is why I've converted £20 of awards in that way, every month for the past couple of years. Every Avio counts...

Not noticed the 30 November end date but I will be a bit miffed if it does stop - not altogether surprised though given the more recent partnership with Barclays.

kieronkumar

artyboy said:

Technically, £20 gets you proportionately ever so slightly more Avios than £10 or £50, which is why I've converted £20 of awards in that way, every month for the past couple of years. Every Avio counts...

Not noticed the 30 November end date but I will be a bit miffed if it does stop - not altogether surprised though given the more recent partnership with Barclays.

I don't see any options to exchange for Avios at all from the myrewards page - is it still there for you? I'm wondering if they've scrapped it earlier than the stated end date or if there's some problem on my end

artyboy

kieronkumar said:

artyboy said:

Technically, £20 gets you proportionately ever so slightly more Avios than £10 or £50, which is why I've converted £20 of awards in that way, every month for the past couple of years. Every Avio counts...

Not noticed the 30 November end date but I will be a bit miffed if it does stop - not altogether surprised though given the more recent partnership with Barclays.

I don't see any options to exchange for Avios at all from the myrewards page - is it still there for you? I'm wondering if they've scrapped it earlier than the stated end date or if there's some problem on my end

Yes, the £10 and £20 options are still there for me, sandwiched between TK Maxx and Caffe Nero.

And I can see it's only when you click on the "more info" tab that it shows the offer is ending, which is why I missed it before. Oh well, one last conversion at the end of the month, then I'll just take the rewards as cash. Annoying...

Gandalf644

I confirmed with Natwest this morning that the Natwest Rewards to Avios exchange does indeed end on 30th November 2023 (with any voucher codes to be converted by 31st December 2023 or else will be lost). 

Apparantly it is to do with their newish Rewards exchange to Emirates Airline Miles as there is some sort of exclusivity agreement tied into this as from 1st Jan 2024. 

A shame as it was a decent way to earn Avios for USA trips. Emirates Miles are of no use to me!

 

Gandalf644

It looks like Natwest may have pulled the Rewards to Avios exchange ending early.

On the Rewards website although it mentions the offer in the header, the ability to exchange to Avios has been removed.

The t&c's page is still showing and still shows the offer as ending on 30th November:

https://www.natwest.com/myrewards/exchange/avios.html

Bad form if Natwest have pulled the exchange early after stating it would end on the 30th. .

Fortunately I exchanged £800 rewards to Avios a few days ago, but had just reached another full £10 of Rewards yesterday and tried to convert that without success.

MrFrugalFever

nothing showing in my 'MyRewards' other than the first few which are Emirates SkyWards.

artyboy

MrFrugalFever said:

nothing showing in my 'MyRewards' other than the first few which are Emirates SkyWards.

Ditto. That's rather irritating as my rewards timing means that I always get £20 on the last few days of the month... 

I could raise a complaint with my relationship manager, but all that would do is remind me how little being a 'Premier' client really means. 

This plane has flown...

Bazzalona13295

In my experience - which I get may differ from some - NatWest are absolutely useless with customer service.

The chat 'service' (Cora) is a total waste of time. You hear nothing for days then supposedly get a reply, only to realise it is nowhere to be seen.

You contact them via the phone (usually without getting to speak to a soul), the branch where none of them know what they're doing, finally try to get to a human online WITHOUT going through the hapless Cora and if you're lucky enough to speak to someone they haven't a clue and answer a completely different question to the one you've asked.

This is based on 4 or 5 different occasions I've dealt with them over simple queries and each time is as bad as the last.

So if the query you are dealing with now is in any way complicated you have my sympathy.

Awful bank to deal with, totally inept system.......

Rant over.

WillPS

Bazzalona13295 said:

In my experience - which I get may differ from some - NatWest are absolutely useless with customer service.

The chat 'service' (Cora) is a total waste of time. You hear nothing for days then supposedly get a reply, only to realise it is nowhere to be seen.

You contact them via the phone (usually without getting to speak to a soul), the branch where none of them know what they're doing, finally try to get to a human online WITHOUT going through the hapless Cora and if you're lucky enough to speak to someone they haven't a clue and answer a completely different question to the one you've asked.

This is based on 4 or 5 different occasions I've dealt with them over simple queries and each time is as bad as the last.

So if the query you are dealing with now is in any way complicated you have my sympathy.

Awful bank to deal with, totally inept system.......

Rant over.

You're right that experience differs.

One of the benefits of Cora is that it leaves an undeniable log of everything it tells you, which both parties can see. This recently led to a situation where my fiancée was able to get £400 in compensation when Natwest claimed a switching offer had finished and removed from the app and website but 'helpfully' offered a £200 compensation payment for poor customer service, which she was able to then add to the Bonus itself when Natwest's complaint handler was pointed to a Cora message about the offer which completely disproved the offer was finished and removed everywhere at that point in time. (The offer was still on the website as a matter of fact, but that would have been much harder to prove definitively.)

Earlier in the year I had cause for complaint after a DD issue where Cora had promised something (in text, on the record) which failed to materialise, and again the outcome was a three-figure compensation payment to cover the payment I had instructed not to happen.

Not a triumph of customer service or epitude but still two occasions I've been very happy in the end that we used Cora rather than phone calls/branch visits which we'd have no way of (easily) reviewing.