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NonGeographicalMan

Ecky-thump wrote: »

The old sayings are the best, still.

You mean such as "There's nowt wrong wi'out that mythe an clutterbucks don't barley grommit";):D

NonGeographicalMan

Or as they have it at http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Ecky-Thump

"There's nowt wrong wi'owt what mitherin' clutterbucks don't barley grummit!"

mazzaott

See my post on the general loyalty card forum as to what I calculate as the true value nowadays of AirMiles as regards certain destinations, in my case Phoenix. This shows, I hope, that the value of an AirMile is now considerably less than what this site has previously calculated and may be as small as 0.0411p. Unfortunately the system will not let me cut and paste it over to this forum.

NonGeographicalMan

mazzaott wrote: »

See my post on the general loyalty card forum as to what I calculate as the true value nowadays of AirMiles as regards certain destinations, in my case Phoenix. This shows, I hope, that the value of an AirMile is now considerably less than what this site has previously calculated and may be as small as 0.0411p. Unfortunately the system will not let me cut and paste it over to this forum.

It seems to depend very heavily indeed on which routes you spend them on. For instance 10,000 miles could buy 14 return flights from Glasgow or Aberdeen to the five Scottish islands destinations (flown by FlyBe) and the cash value of those flights is probably nearer to £2,000 or 20p per mile by my calculations. The difficulty comes in ever finding much availability on those routes, although I latterly discovered Air Miles flights are available to Scottish Islands on a handful of off peak dates from Glasgow and Aberdeen but not at all from down south as it would involve taking two flights (seemingly not allowed by the Air Miles booking computer, even though both airports are main Air Miles airports in Zone 1 and Air Miles booking staff appear to be unaware of this booking rule).

On the other hand use your miles on a return flight to Los Angeles then they may be worth even less than you stated compared to the cheapest cash fares. Although I think you had your decimal point in the wrong place and perhaps meant 4.11p per mile?

cundall

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

So I take it you don't have any children at school and don't mind at all if the free Air Miles flights are only available on 14 out of 365 days in the year then?:rolleyes:

Spending lots of money just to earn Air Miles (regardless of whether or not there are better deals or products elsewhere that don't offer Air Miles) sounds a like particularly misguided policy.

Don't have children (well i hope not).... and i can take my flights whenever i wish as all flight dates i select are free Yes i spent £50 more than i do normally (well infact it was £30) but i spend a lot on my credit card anyway and this way i am just getting airmiles rather than a poor rate of cash back.

I don't think that is wrong.

mazzaott

Further to my post earlier today, and the response by Nongeographicalman, I apologise, the decimal point was misplaced. I paid BA £329.00 for my return flight to Phoenix this coming October. The AirMiles fare is 8000 miles. 32900 pence divided by 8000 values an Air Mile at 4.1125 pence, according to my calculator. Had I paid the current fare for my chosen dates, £451-30, then the value of an air miles becomes 5.64125p - both a lot less than the 8.5p originally calculated by MoneyExpert. This shows that value of an AirMile has greatly diminished, although it is true that the value does depend on route - as I said in my post on the loyalty card forum.

Ecky-thump

Not sure whether it matters what the value of one Airmile is, I just did some searching and found this:

Guernsey from Bristol Airport. 5-12 June 2010. Hotel only. 2 adults. 1 room.

Green Acres Hotel, in St Martins. 3 Star rating.

5,600 miles plus £225. OR - 1,870 miles plus £450. OR - Pay £560 and get 112 miles.

Can anyone understand why this costs so much? For 5,600 Airmiles the Zone system shows we can go quite a way on that amount, yet just a hotel booking for us both for a week in Guernsey costs that much. Why, fgs?

Oh, and that was the cheapest. Three others were offered ranging from 6,300 miles plus £250 to 13,120 miles no extra cash, all 3 Star rating.

These valuations do not make any sense to me and I will not be booking a holiday there.

I looked at the Flight and Hotel bookings as well and was advised that there are no full miles prices available. Cash prices only were shown and only for the Flight - £111.50 per person, on those dates I gave above.

What a load of old codswallop it is. It is a wonder that anyone books with them to Guernsey.

mazzaott

Where it does matter is when you are converting Tesco Clubcard points to Air Miles. At the sale price of my ticket, £329.00, at the current Tesco/Air Mile exchange rate of 60 miles per £2.50 worth of Clubcard coupons, the 8000 miles take £333.33 worth of Clubcard tokens, worth £1332.32 in Clubcard deals. Even at the old rate of exchange of 80 miles per £2.50 which some still enjoy, it takes £250.00 worth of coupons, worth £1000.00 worth of Clubcard deals. So it could be, as in my case, that you would use as much as £1332.32 of value to pay for something worth only £329.00. Viewed in this way, paying in Air Miles is a very expensive option, though this is my opinion only.

NonGeographicalMan

mazzaott wrote: »

So it could be, as in my case, that you would use as much as £1332.32 of value to pay for something worth only £329.00. Viewed in this way, paying in Air Miles is a very expensive option, though this is my opinion only.

It is a view I also strongly share.

Air Miles are a ripoff but some of you seem to still be too blind to see that this is the case.

SparciaM

I use a Lloyds Duo card to collect Airmiles. I only spend on things I need and I get the miles as a bonus. Being a student, I can't get the cashback cards, so this is fine. I now have nearly 4000 miles since December 2007 and even though I've not booked a flight or deal yet, the ones I've looked at booking have always been on the dates I wanted.

End of day, I'm not paying anything for my miles, so if I don't use them, I'm not losing out and if I do I'm getting a free flight.

People might groan about these deals, but if you are paying for them, then there isn't any reason to moan about.