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[MSE Jenny]

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's '£300 US Biz Class Return on British Airways' Blog.

Click reply to discuss below.

[dmg24]

Is the title not a tad misleading? It is actually £300 plus approx 50,000 BA miles.

[Dizie]

Good on you! Bring us back a stick of rock - do they do rock in NY?!

Look forward to seeing the new articles when they're up and running as am currently helping my parents do a "money makeover" and wonder if an airmiles card might be better for them.

[Airwolf1]

I use the MBNA Rewards card. I don't like these cashback ones that only offer it for a certain amount of time, although the Citibank one, in conjunction with Shell could save me a fortune in fuel expenses.

[rlevy1950]

This is not something I thought I would ever say about BA, but I too have had a brilliant trip using BAmiles accrued with Amex use. From an oridinary Blue British Airways American Express Card I spent £20k plus in one year when my daughter was getting married. This enitltled me to a companion ticket free. We had enough BAMiles saved to travel club to California. What a difference. The real price of the trip would have been over £2.5 thousand. I use amex for everything (All the big supermarkets take it) - and pay it off every month. I will not give them any interest.

I am now on the lookout for a card that gives me other freebies, travel insurance, breakdown cover etc. If anyone knows of one?????

[kezzakkc]

I'd been accumulating Clubcard points mainly because I refused to let Tesco get the benefit of them! With just over £400 available I was thinking of using them on a holiday with a Clubcard deals partner - trouble is the sort of holidays I fancied involved long-haul flights in 'steerage' and at 6'4" that's not a pleasant prospect! A friend told me tesco had now partnered up with BA Miles and this coincided with BA's 50% mileage promotion for business class.

So - on a Friday afternoon, having been told by both BA and Tesco that the conversion from Clubcard Points to BA Miles should be pretty much instant, I submitted all my voucher codes online at Tesco's web site. On Saturday morning I was told that nothing would happen until the Monday because the high value meant the transfer had to be manually approved. On Monday tesco told me the transfer had taken place but BA kept insisting it could take up to 28 days to appear on their system! This would, of course, have ruled out benefitting from the time-limited 50% BA deal!! However, the BA miles appeared the following morning (which is what I figured would happen based on my knowledge of IT and the way these things should work) and I then set about booking myself a roundtrip business class flight to Sydney for 100,000 miles.

In the end I paid around £450 taxes and fuel surcharges and the face value of the points was around £420 so I guess I got a business flight to Sydney and back (and I could have booked a stopover in Singapore if I'd wished) for under £900 - not bad going



The only drawback I found was the sparse availability of seats - I wanted to travel in February/March but there was no availablity - I could have flown on 1st January (2009) but wouldn't have been able to return until April!! The first available flights weren't until June (Winter in Oz) and to travel in November 2009 meant flying out on 10-Nov and returning on 11-Nov as they weren't booking any further forward than that!! In the end I settled for a 3 week trip in September.

I like the idea of the BA Amex card as I spend a lot each month on business expenses which are always paid in full so I'm going to investigate that one!!!

[meester]

Originally Posted by dmg24

Is the title not a tad misleading? It is actually £300 plus approx 50,000 BA miles.

EXTREMELY misleading I'd say.

At Tesco, 600 miles costs £2.50 of vouchers. Or £10 in other deals

So had he bought in Tesco vouchers he would have sacrificed approx £833 worth of deals.

Still a good deal, but no way it's £300

Another way of looking at it is, how much spending did this 50,000 miles cost?
And what's the best he could have got on another card as true 'cash' back. That is the true cost. He gave up some % on his spending in order to get these flights (not sure what that is, I don't keep track, as I'm happy with my (now withdrawn) Tesco card that pays an effective 2% in the form of deals).

[JCB_Digger]

I used to use my personal credit card (a cashback Goldfish) for all my company spend - it was great because I got the cashback, but I also did my paperwork at the end of the month as otherwise I wouldn't get my money back off the company.

All went well until the Taxman came and noticed that the bills/receipts the company was trying to reclaim the VAT for weren't in the companies name, but in mine.

We got away with it then, but were warned not to let this happen again.

Regards, John

[sdooley]

do you have to pay tax on the benefit derived from your job by using the points scheme from work expenses?

[meester]

BTW, which card does Martin have?

Is it the £150 'Premium Plus' card? (For which 50k points would be £33,333 of spending - equivalent to £650 on a Amex platinum card (when you figure in the £150 fee))

For £33,333 of spending on my Tesco card, I get £166.66 worth of deals vouchers, which buys 40,000 miles from Tesco - but I don't pay the £150 fee.

Comparing apples with apples, free Amex card with free Tesco card, the ratios are:

£500 spent with Amex = 500 miles
£500 spent = 1 Tesco reward voucher = 600 reward miles

So the Tesco card is 20% better, and far more versatile - for instance a couple of years ago I bought my wife a £1000 watch from Goldsmiths using the vouchers.

If you compare the free and non-free Amex BA cards, then if you figure the worth of the miles as about 1.67p (based on otherwise £10 Tesco deals value divided by 600) each, then the cut-off point to make it worth paying the fee is £18,000 of spending per year. And to make it better than the Tesco card - purely at collecting BA miles - you need to spend at least £30k a year. Even so, I'd say you need to spend rather more than that, because the flexibility of Tesco points is worth a lot, and BA miles could easily by substantially devalued at any point in the future.

All hail Tesco!

[MSE Martin]

Hi Meester - all good but you're forgetting the companion voucher from Amex spend

[Brittanic]

I wanted to get the Amex Card but my income wont be suitable for a while... however I found Tesco gave me a card instantly so I use them instead for all my spending and pay off in full.

Slowly accruing BA miles so one day I too will fly human class...

Touching wood - I haven't paid any interest on it...

[meester]

Originally Posted by MSE Martin

Hi Meester - all good but you're forgetting the companion voucher from Amex spend

Ah touche.

You get one per year if you spend £20k a year (which is not that much, although with Amex, I might struggle). At that level of spending though, you're only earning 20,000 miles and the vouchers are use it or lose it, so I bet a lot of them go unredeemed.

Plus my experience tends to be that the fees on these things are very high, so there's no guarantee they are worth using for economy travel (because instead of say 15,000 miles plus fees (I'm guessing £80?) to Spain, you could just book flights for £100-£150 instead, so in this case the miles aren't worth that much....).

More informed comment is interesting though.

[MSE Martin]

Originally Posted by meester

Ah touche.

You get one per year if you spend £20k a year (which is not that much, although with Amex, I might struggle). At that level of spending though, you're only earning 20,000 miles and the vouchers are use it or lose it, so I bet a lot of them go unredeemed.

Plus my experience tends to be that the fees on these things are very high, so there's no guarantee they are worth using for economy travel (because instead of say 15,000 miles plus fees (I'm guessing £80?) to Spain, you could just book flights for £100-£150 instead, so in this case the miles aren't worth that much....).

More informed comment is interesting though.

Thats the reason why they've never rated that high before. The return at Biz level is better and I think that needs factoring in. Of course the perfect scenario is a Amex which you spend up to £20,000 then switch to a Tesco card for the remainder to earn more points which are then redeamed using the companion voucher. Though the extra card needs to be weighed against the credit score impact.

[Tojo Ralph]

Originally Posted by MSE Martin

Thats the reason why they've never rated that high before. The return at Biz level is better and I think that needs factoring in. Of course the perfect scenario is a Amex which you spend up to £20,000 then switch to a Tesco card for the remainder to earn more points which are then redeamed using the companion voucher. Though the extra card needs to be weighed against the credit score impact.

Based on one paying off ones CC in full monthly, when doing a comparison, don't forget to crunch the numbers on the BA Amex Premium Plus card to see how it shapes up. It has an up front fee of £150, but the spend required for the companion ticket is only £10,000. Additionally there are extra air miles earned per £1 spend, Double Miles on BA flights and elevated levels of travel insurance.

[meester]

Originally Posted by MSE Martin

Thats the reason why they've never rated that high before. The return at Biz level is better and I think that needs factoring in. Of course the perfect scenario is a Amex which you spend up to £20,000 then switch to a Tesco card for the remainder to earn more points which are then redeamed using the companion voucher. Though the extra card needs to be weighed against the credit score impact.

Actually the premium Amex scores 1.5 miles per £1 against the Tesco one that scores 1.2 per £1. Worth the £150 if you spend enough.

The issue is your deal was rather exceptional and may not be repeated.

BA has redemptions at:
9,000 (Netherlands, UK, Ireland, etc.)
15,000 (Spain, Austria, etc.)
20,000 (Algeria, Libya, Russia, Turkey)
40,000 (Egypt, the Gulf, Ghana, Nigeria)
50,000 (N America, Southern Africa, India)
70,000 (S America)
80,000 (SE/E Asia)
100,000 (Australia)

Premium economy costs 50% more, Club double, and First triple.

Clearly business class at the 15,000 level is a waste. At the 20,000 level you've got some 4 hour flights. Not bad, but still not a great use. Move up to 40,000 and you've got 7 hour flights to Dubai. Much better.

And at 50,000 you've got 12 hour flights to West Coast USA, Cape Town, etc.

So realistically forget 20,000, you need to earn 80,000 miles, preferably 100,000, to get good use out of this (companion voucher expires after 1 year) - on a long flight in Club.

That's £66k/year, £5.5k/month, very hefty spending.

So as a sole source of miles without the surprise bonus of the 50% off 'sale', the card is not enough for all but the most profligate.... If you already earn good miles, e.g. on business, though, the companion voucher is a great deal, and attainable at £20k/year of spending.

Another limitation of it is that the companion voucher only really works well for couples. Familes will need to cough up for the kids too, and then you are looking at moon-mileages.

I'd say this card is very specialised, and most people will end up not using it to its full use (do miles expire after a period?) or making short, poor-value redemptions like trips to Malaga.

Having said that, it's not possible to recommend the Tesco card any more, because the current one is only half as good - 1 point for £4 - as the old, 1 point for £2. The card I have is the Tesco Platinum - but it seems you can't apply for it, they just push the comparatively rubbish 'Bonus' card.

[Raffles99]

Get the BMI Amex card - the most under-appreciated piece of plastic in Britain if not the world!

Sign up for the premium card (£60 fee) and you get 24,000 BMI Diamond Club miles. You get 2 miles per £1 spent. When you get to 37,500 miles (so just £6,750 of spending needed) you ALREADY have enough miles to redeem for a business class ticket to the US, South Africa, Caribbean etc.

The only catch is that you need to pay £255 in addition to the taxes - see 'cash and miles' on the BMI website for details. And, of course, because BMI don't fly to many places you are likely to be travelling on Lufthansa, Swiss, United, Air Canada or one of BMI's other partners. I have just booked a First Class ticket to Tokyo for May on Swiss with my BMI miles and am off to Dubai on Lufthansa (First Class) in January.

[Raffles99]

With the BA card, you MUST get the Premium Plus version. Getting the basic card (the one that needs £20k of spend to get the voucher) is stupid.

Why? The Premium Plus card gives 1.5 miles per £1 spent. The basic card gives 1 mile per £1 spent. If you're spending £20,000 per year, you would earn 10,000 extra miles on the Premium Plus card which offsets the £150 fee. The more you spend (Martin mentioned £50,000) the more blinkin' obvious it is to pay the £150 for the Premium Plus.

If you're interested in any of this, its worth spending some time on the BA Executive Club and BMI Diamond Club sections of www.flyertalk.com

[arealhighlander]

As soon as read the tip in the Email, I went to BA website and got my wife and I 2 Business class returns from Heathrow to San Francisco for next May.

We were there last year at the same time, I used Miles For Upgrade and it cost 50k miles plus £1900. This time, I used 100k miles and it cost us £760!

Cheers for the tip, otherwise I would have missed out on it

Its funny because we leave London and fly back over my house on the Isle of Skye on the way out - though its a tad small when you're 38,000 ft up :L

[Raffles99]

Originally Posted by sdooley

do you have to pay tax on the benefit derived from your job by using the points scheme from work expenses?

No - this is official Revenue policy