Brendan Hughes

Anyone get good results out of air miles programmes?

I've been a member for yonks. After flying transcontinental business class maybe 10 times, I got enough for one transcontinental world traveller plus. For the rest, I fly about 4-5 times a year throughout Europe in economy, usually on changeable tickets, but after several years my current status says I have about 40 quid's worth .

Meanwhile an American friend of my wife says she has one linked to her Amex card which she uses to buy absolutely everything for her business, and she can't remember the last time she flew cattle class.

Then when I look at the offers for miles plus cash, it looks like the sort of thing I could arrange on the net for less cash and no miles

Am I not playing the system correctly, or are they just hype?

Floyd

iTrader: (9)

I get everything on my tescos card at premium rate, which is converted to air miles. I'm not sure it's that good a deal and as you say you can often find cheaper deals on the interweb. If you call them sometimes they can sort something reasonable.

I used my last lot for a holiday at Disneyland for the wife and two kids. It paid for everything except food but this was a special deal.

coolangatta

I fly, business, with Star Alliance carriers.
With bonus miles I get around 15,000 for a return trip Tokyo/London.
I can convert those miles to Edy (electronic) money and use that in a lot of Japanese retail outlets. So roughly £75 (equivalent) each time I fly to spend on what I like!
Not bad for nowt (company paid flights).
I periodically get upgrade vouchers to first class too, which is nice!

Flatcapdriver

I've got just over 100k's worth of BA Air Miles and I have to say trying to use them is not easy. Every time I've tried to book a flight to Oz or similar it'll allow me to book one way but not return saying the flights aren't available. Seems like a con to me?

Probably better used for upgrading but not that useful real freebies.

Freak

No you arent playing the system correctly.

I dont collect airmiles, but I collect BA miles and AA(same alliance as BA) or BMI (star alliance) miles when I cant credit to BA.
Works for me... especially flying business class- you rack them up.
Use them for upgrading to first/business, or straight redemptions. Being able to use them on other alliance partners is also useful.
The trick is to pick an alliance you fly most often with and then credit as many miles in one place as you can...

Oz is notoriously difficult to redeem on BA... along with EZE (Buenos Aries) and CPT(Cape Town) which are also pigs.
For those three you really do have to book basically when they get released- which is just under a yr in advance.
Plus...why the hell are you burning your miles for an ECONOMY flight??(as thats all 100k will get you for oz...you need 200 for business). The taxes will come to not a huge amount short of what an econ ticket to there will cost you in the first place
Get the BA amex, put £10k through it and get the 2-4-1 redemption voucher, convert your tescos vouchers to BA miles, get a load more miles, then fly in style in business or first and treat your wife/mistress/best mate/whotever to the companion ticket...
Plenty of places with more open availability- you could book a business rtn to JFK for 100k miles leaving tomorrow if you wanted, such is the availability.

Brendan Hughes

Cheers Freak, I was sort of expecting you'd answer

I'm a bit peeved as I have 7000 miles from TAP and 18 000 from Lufthansa, both on Star Alliance, but apparently not allowed to transfer all onto one card That stinks.

Maybe I should look to see if there's a Lufthansa Visa card. Would take me quite some time to put 10k through it though, I guess unlike you I don't buy my own plane tickets and perhaps that's where a lot of the expenditure comes from.

Freak

Yes but do you buy them then put them in as expenses? you would still get the miles... or is it done by a travel dept?
Get the card then just paypal it to yourself then pay it off.... allegedly... ahem

LH do have a c/card...
Lufthansa - United Kingdom
as do BMI, and BMI is part of the same alliance- you can book one way redemptions too remember... so you could say, continue crediting your LH flights to LH, and build up a BMI balance too (you get 20k BMI miles just for taking the card out) then book two one ways using seperate miles balances- but booked both on LH.

All sorts of ways to use the system... although it can get geeky and complicated.
I burned 150K BA miles and a 2-4-1 voucher to get myself and someone else to & from the west coast on BA in First class a few weeks ago, and my flight on monday has been upgraded to F using some of my miles (a lot of which come from tesco believe it or not- 1 tesco clubcard point=2.4 BA miles)... thats what I use them for most- upgrading- which literally saves me thousands on practially every flight I take.

Take a look on FlyerTalk Forums - thats where most of this stuff is...

Brendan Hughes

This reminds me of the kid who blagged one of the last flights on concorde by buying 700 packs of biscuits or something funny.

Indeed, tickets are bought by a travel dept.

I think I see your point, take out different cards in the same alliance and benefit from all the opening miles.

I'll have a look at the LH card, though they want sixty quid a year when I already pay similar for a Barclaycard...

Cheers

Freak

Oh it gets geekier than biscuits... The Pudding Guy

not posting what ive bought and done to get miles... but its equally nuts

ex-webby

Freak, very interesting, thanks for posting the tips.

Through an admin ****-up I've accidentally racked up about 80K miles on Qantas. I'd ideally like to move these to my BA program, but they tell me I can't.

Any other suggestions as to how I can make use of them, as I don't fly to Aus very often, and as such don't really need them on Qantas.

I usually use points by buying a world traveller plus ticket then using the points to upgrade to business. I can't use the Qantas to upgrade BA flights (only qantas), only to buy a full ticket.

-

I also love the idea of the BA American Express and sticking everything through it. Roughly how many miles per spend is it?

Also, might start shopping at tesco!

Thanks for all the tips and the link!

Freak

No problemo..
Thats a bit of pain with the qantas thing-did they credit them to qantas instead of BA by mistake? Not the only one thats caught out.. i had a bit of a royal rumble getting some poiints and miles credited to BA after they had been posted to my AA account by mistake
I Don't think you can do anything else with them annoyingly.
Thats how I use a lot of my points too- by upgrading from WT+ - exceptional value.

well there are two BA amex cards...
Basic (Blue):
-1 mile/£1
-No annual fee
-£20,000 through in one yr to get the 2-4-1.

Premium plus (black):
-£120/yr (although free if you have had the amex platinum charge card for 6 months or longer)
-1.5miles/£1
-3miles/ every £1 spent with BA
-£10,000 / yr to get the 2-4-1

British Airways - American Express

ex-webby

Yeah, credited to wrong account. Its my fault for not double checking.

Thanks a lot sir. I really appreciate the tips.