There are already four of these threads, hopefully they can be merged in here in due course....
You can join the Shell Drivers Club by picking up a card from a Shell petrol station. Then register here:
https://www.shellsmart.com/smart/use...tml?site=en-en
If you buy at least 150 litres of Shell V-Power diesel or unleaded in a quarter, you will be invited into the Shell V-Power Club in the next quarter.
Earnings rate:
1 point per litre except:
2 points per litre for V-Power fuel for V-power Club members only, without limit
2 points per litre of fuel in any month where you buy more than 200 litres of any kind of fuel, for that month only. Fuel purchases beyond 400 litres earn only 1 point (so 401 litres = 801 points)
All users receive 1 point per £1 selected Shell Helix products, 25 points for a Gold car wash service and 15 points for a Gold jet wash service.
1 point is worth 0.5p in Shell vouchers, or 0.5 Avios.
As of February 2012 you can purchase Avios from BA at 1.28p/ea+£16, but 1p/Avios is generally a good guide to their value, which is what the Shell scheme values them at, although the Shell vouchers are obviously more flexible.
At any rate, the Shell Drivers Club discount is equivalent to 0.5p/litre for regular fuels, or 1p/litre on V-Power for V-power Club members or people buying >200 litres in a month. V-Power costs between 5p and 10p more than the regular stuff, and while it might give slightly (2% or more) better performance on a high-performance engine, it WON'T save you money overall.
You can find your cheapest local fuel at
http://www.petrolprices.com/
Obviously it's not going to be worth getting petrol at Shell unless they are cheapest, but some people like to use 99RON fuel.
Tesco Clubcard users get 1 point per £2 spent on fuel. Currently 250 Clubcard points = 1000 Avios, and with a litre of fuel at around £1.40, this works out at 2.8 Avios/litre. At the long-term rate of 600 Avios, the rate falls to 1.7 Avios/litre, still much better than Shell offer, even for high-volume buyers and V-power Club members, and sufficient to make Tesco a better choice than somewhere 1p or even 2p cheaper.
In either case you can earn further Avios using your choice of Avios credit card....
https://www.shellonlineshopping.co.uk/ is the online shopping club, aka cashback website. Here you earn points, and points of course mean Avios.
Unfortunately the cashback rates are basically dreadful and they have also employed a nasty trick whereby you get far fewer points than anticipated - e.g., Dixons instead of 1 point per £1 is instead 10 points per £10, so if you spend £19.99, you only get 10 points.
If you want to earn Avios through online shopping, you can try
http://www.avios.com/collect/avios-estore Avios Estore
or
http://www.britishairways.com/travel/eshop/public/en_gb BA Estore
Here for instance instead of 10 points per £10 = 5 Avios for £10, you get 2 Avios per £1 on Dixons, so for £10 spend you earn 20 Avios - the Avos Estore is 4* better than the Shell one.
The trick with the Shell Shopping Club is that the Shell Drivers Club rates are all half (or less) what they should. If you hold a V-Power Club card the rates are all doubled. The problem is that the doubled rates are in actual fact the fair rates, and to get the doubled rate you need to buy lots of high-margin V-Power fuel. And then even if you do, the 10 points per £10 trick (rather than 1 point per £1) will make the Avios/BA stores a better option (not to mention more transparent).
The other thing to check is
www.quidco.com, here you get cash, and the rates on offer may be preferable to receiving Avios.
So basically the Shell/Avios partnership is of little use, but if you are buying fuel in Shell anyway, you might as well pick up a card, on the understanding that you'd be significantly better off in Tesco....
Currently there is a 2000 Avios bonus for both BA and Avios.com, which you can earn, per quarter, by using a 'new' method for earning Avios:
http://www.britishairways.com/travel...c/en_gb?#shell
http://www.avios.com/collect/shell/a...?from=shellAcq
To earn this you need just 150 Shell Smart points, which you can do by buying 150 litres of fuel (or 75 for existing 'v-power' members), or by using the online shopping site above, bearing in mind that the rates are terrible and you've no reason to go over your 300 points (150 for ba.com, 150 for avios.com)
Also promotions may occur in the future between Shell and Avios that might change the general picture detailed above, so aside from the 2000 Avios bonus (twice!) you should pick up a card just in case, and get to work on the 300 points....