PanGalactic

Find and earn extra Avios with Avios Finder!

Avios Finder 1.2 (now with BMI) [for UK and US members]

This is an updated version of an "extension" to Google's Chrome browser which will give you a notification when you land on a website and helps you find when there is a potential to earn Avios points.

This should help you find where you can earn Avios on purchases you were about to make without going through an eStore.

To install Avios Finder and find extra Avios, simply download the file below and click on it to install.

If you had Avios Finder 1.0 or 1.1 installed, you will need to click on the little spanner, preferences, extensions then find and remove the previous version.

When you install Avios Finder for the first time, you may get a warning that it has access to your browsing data, however please be assured it does not send the data to me, or anywhere else. Your privacy is not affected!

After it is installed, you will need to tell it which eStore(s) you would like to use by right clicking on the Avios Finder icon on your browser and selecting options. Or it won't find anything!!!



When you land on a site where you can earn Avios, a little popup notification will appear in the top right of the screen.



You should then log in to the relevant eStore and make your purchase in order to earn avios.

Alternatively, you can (left) click on the Avios Finder icon and it will provide you with a direct link to the "Shop Now" button so you can earn avios for that retailer on the eStore you select.

If the retailer is available where you can earn avios on more than 1 eStore you will be provided with links to their page on each eStore when you click on the Avios Finder icon.



Please note, there is no need to be logged in to the eStore(s) in order for Avios Finder to find Avios, however the links on Avios Finder will only work if you have already logged into the site and clicked on the "Shop Now" button to enter the eStore and earn Avios.
Just logging into ba.com or avios.com is not enough, you need to click on "Shop now" in order to get the eStore cookie for the links to work properly.

The retailers and Avios earning rates for ba.com and Avios.com eStore are up to date as of 26/03/2012, BMI added on 23/04/2012 and hard coded into the extension so currently it will not work for sites added since then.

In the near future we hope to add further capability to this extension so that will do a daily check against a server to see if any retailers have been added or removed from each eStore, or if earnings have changed then update itself accordingly.
This should mean that you will never need to download another version and it will always be up to date with the latest retailers and earnings.

We also plan to add other eStores, including Shell, Virgin, Continental Airlines and others. (We will obviously need to think of a new name at that point too )

If you know of any other eStores you would like to see added please let us know and we will do our best to add them to the next version.

Many thanks go to my long time friend and fellow FT'er since 2006 although he has never posted, azymux who helped with the programming of this updated version of Avios Finder.

There is a slight bug when you have installed it for the first time, the options page appears blank, just click on save settings, then close the options page and go back to it again and the options should appear.



Sorry about that!

Another known bug is that when you browse to another site which doesn't have Avios and you click on the Avios icon, it still shows the links for the last page you browsed to which did have Avios.

As always, use at your own risk, we are not responsible if your computer turns into a scary monster and tries to eat you.

Please post your Avios Finder success stories here!

Also, If you would like to be kept informed of future developments please "friend" me.

Enjoy!


Click Here to download

PanGalactic

bump,

Anyone downloaded this yet?

I'll do a comparison of all the retailers earn rates later today and post it back here.

Jamjaw

Thanks, Pan. Just got this and am sure it will be as useful as the last one. Now if you can just ask quidco and top cashback in there

PanGalactic

Not as straightforward unfortunately, as they don't provide a complete list of retailers in an easy to scrape format Same with Shell and Iberia

Although I have recently met a fellow FTer who is a scraping specialist so I will ask him to help me with this

Paralytic

You and he should form the Association of Scraping Specialists. It'd look quite nice on your business card.

Aside: In my younger years, I was the recipient of two cease-and-desist lawyers letters after I wrote some freeware stock account management software that screen-scraped real-time share price information from various websites.

A few years later, I also got one from the English Premier League when I ran a football prediction site - each seasons fixture list is regarded as copyright material. It was either close down the site, or pay them a few thousand Ł in royalties to use the fixtures.

PanGalactic

Thanks for pointing that out.

This doesn't do any realtime scraping so won't be creating excess loads on their servers, also if they want me to cease and desist from earning them money, that's completely up to them I suppose.

Paralytic

Yeah, can't see them having an issue with what you're doing. In my case, I was effectively stopping people needing to visit their site whereas your tool does not.

PanGalactic

To be completely honest, I have actually attempted to contact the company behind all these eStores to ask if they would be prepared to offer me some kind of token kickback on the traffic sent to them in order to fund future development but have just been blanked.

I'd be over the moon if they offered me 1 Avio per click

Paralytic

I've said it before - you should have a "Want referred for the Platinum Card?" link on your tool somewhere. So long as its not intrusive, I can't see why anyone should complain.

It's what I'd do.

tooblue

This just keeps on working for me. It's so easy to overlook occasional Avios earning opportunities but this useful extension won't let me forget.

Nice work, [B]PanGalactic[B]! Thanks!

PanGalactic

Glad it's working well!

I just found out today you can get 4 BMI miles per Ł on Hilton bookings, so that's now a triple/quad dip

Avios from Credit Card, points from BMI eStore, points from Hilton, Avios from Hilton, Happy Days!

(Someone's going to post now and say they prefer cashback from quidco )

BravoKilo

Thanks Pan

BK

Amarone

Many thanks - as a leisure only flyer am very grateful for any additional avios earning opportunities!

csuxv

Add the quidco chrome extension as well

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...ajcog?hl=en-GB

PanGalactic

Yes, but don't rely on it...