Sending ampersand(&) inside value of jQuery AJAX

Following is the simple ajax I was using in the projects:

jQuery.ajax({
url: "/controllerName/actionName",
data: "testKey=" + testValue,
success: function (data) {
alert(data);
}
});

This works fine but if testValue contains ‘&’ then data received in the controller is not correct.

e.g. if

testValue = Hounour & Awards

then params are

[testValue: Hounour, Awards:, action: actionName, controller: controllerName]

I found a simple a way to solve the issue and best thing is no string concatenation required:

jQuery.ajax({
url: "/controllerName/actionName",
data: {testKey: testValue},
success: function (data) {
alert(data);
}
});