Today has been a day of earning opportunities.  My second day of unemployment.  I prefer to call it retirement but as I’m not drawing a pension I think my official status is unemployed and not seeking work.  Lazy fecker is another technical term some might adopt.

As usual, I awoke early.  A quick perusal of the excellent Headforpoints web site unearthed no new nuggets of loyalty programme points collection, but I did have a short survey waiting for me that paid me the unimpressive sum of 50 Avios.  Somewhere between 30p and  £1.25 in value to be squeezed out of that.  Two other surveys didn’t like my profile and I’ll pick up a good 10 Avios from that rejection.  Not a lot.  But hey, it wasn’t even 7am and already the money (or Avios) was rolling in.

I checked my Nectar app.  I find Nectar to be a weak loyalty scheme.  It’s limited for collection value and rubbish for spend value.  Tesco and Avios give you exciting ways to leverage earnings and rewards in quite innovative ways to create real value.  And brand loyalty.

Two things on Nectar had, however, caught my eye.  500 bonus points if I book Virgin West Coast trains.  I pondered if I had any possible options for this but, alas, not.  £2.50 certainly doesn’t make it worth me paying a tenner to head from Manchester to Stoke.

BP paying 250 points for filling up with petrol did catch my eye.  No minimum.  So later in the day I added a fiver in fuel, bagged my points, estimated the gain of £1.25 in value would be offset by 24p in overcharging in the BP price.  It’s a gain.  Dave wins.  A quid off a future Easyjet flight.

Next on to Tesco fuel.  £58 added here.  Always even off the amount at Tesco fuel as the Clubcard points are added 1 per £2 spent.  My 29 points here would have been the same even if I’d spent £59.99.  Ticking over to £60 generates a thirtieth Clubcard point.  30 points = 72 Avios = top end value of £1.80.  Oh, and 4% off fuel by using the Teaco gift card obtained via a work discount site.  Every little helps.  Over £4 in Avios and gift card value generated.

In store next, to buy some confectionary for the New England trip.  Three purchases of £1 each.  Tesco recently sent me a voucher allowing 50 bonus Clubcard points on my next eight purchases.  Off to the self service checkout.  Make three individual purchases of £1 each.  Effectively paying 96p each time with the gift card.  Obtaining the standard 1 point plus the 50 bonus points three times.

In other words £2.88 in spend has generated 153 Tesco Clubcard points.  Those will trade up to 367 Avios points.  Top end redemption value will be around £9.18.  If I manage to wangle a BOGOF Avios credit card award later in the year my £2.88 will be worth a fair bit of confectionary and £18.36 towards expensive flights.

I sit here wondering why the unemployed don’t spend their lives flying business class at least twice a year.

Or is that a tactless line?

Ranking the Places I’ve Visited This Year