Boost Your Airmiles Discussion Area

IM

danjberry wrote: »

Hi all, well im looking at applying for an airmiles card and was wondering what the general consensus was on the easiest one to pick up airmiles. I had a look at Lloyds, BA, and BMI and to be honest couldnt get my head round the maths as a mile means something different on each site, plus the amount needed to spend is different, plus the free mles you get signing up with each card is differnet . Anyhelp will be greatly appreciated.

Don't confuse the term 'airmiles'. You are dealing with three separate schemes here:

Air Miles - http://www.airmiles.co.uk/
British Airways Executive Club miles - http://www.britishairways.com/travel/echome/public/en_gb?link=TOP_echome
bmi Diamond Club mile - http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/diamond-club/reward-programmes.aspx

Each has their own rules and their own pros and cons. I have stashes of each of varying sizes.

One thing to consider is that if you want a credit card to collect points, a Tesco card gives you the option of converting the Clubcard points you acrue to Air Miles or BAEC Miles - or of course any of the other redemption options.

As said earlier, the information on the various forums on FlyerTalk.com is invaluable if you want to go down this route. For example, a quick search on the BAEC forum came up with this discussion of the relative 'value' of BA Miles - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/730036-value-ba-miles.html

danjberry

Hi thanks for your replies. I mostly shop at Asda, and i reckon i could do £1000 a month on CC, and economy is more then fine for me.

IM, thanks for your reply, i will be checking out the link now

kind regards

IM

danjberry wrote: »

Hi thanks for your replies. I mostly shop at Asda, and i reckon i could do £1000 a month on CC, and economy is more then fine for me.

IM, thanks for your reply, i will be checking out the link now

kind regards

Nowt wrong with earning Tesco Clubcard points on your Asda shop!

basiaking

I was going to book a flight yesterday for me, my husband, and 2 children to New York in August 2010. I performed a search on the Airmiles website thinking that, as it's nearly a year away, availability would not be a problem. The outward flight was fine (14 August 2010) but the return date 2 weeks later kept showing "check other options" and there was no miles only return flights at all during the last week of August until September 2010. I rang Airmiles to query this and thought that perhaps it is too early to book these flights and they may not have been loaded on the system but the lady on the phone assured me that if I am being offered return flights in September 2010 as an alternative, then that means the ones in August are sold out. Can this be right? I am sure that this was not he case a year ago and that there was lots of availability in August. Do you think that Airmiles are offering very few flights (or none at all) on certain dates in August as it is the time when the flights would have been the most expensive if paying cash? Anyone any ideas?

NonGeographicalMan

basiaking wrote: »

I was going to book a flight yesterday for me, my husband, and 2 children to New York in August 2010. I performed a search on the Airmiles website thinking that, as it's nearly a year away, availability would not be a problem. The outward flight was fine (14 August 2010) but the return date 2 weeks later kept showing "check other options" and there was no miles only return flights at all during the last week of August until September 2010.

Unfortunately the last few days of August are one of the most overbooked periods of the year in relation to the available number of flights because even using every currently serviceable aircraft in use by every transatlantic airline not all of the demand from families needing to get their children back home for the start of the next school year can be met.

This means that knowing this British Airways (aka TheMileageCompany/AirMiles) take a view that they would rather sell every seat on those peak dates for cash knowing that they can and will sell around 100% of available seats for cash and for this reason absolutely no seats are ever made available to Air Miles on dates where this is the case. With the recent and future planned significant reductions in total long haul seat capacity by BA this situation will unfortunately only become even more extreme in future at busy times of year.

This is why collecting Air Miles is simply not to be recommended for anyone who needs to travel at peak travel periods like Easter, Xmas, New Year and summer holidays, friday afternoon, saturdays, monday morning and so on and so forth.

But no matter how often I try to make this clear other people here wrongly try to convince people that Air Miles are some wonderful freebie that let you travel on BA flights for nothing whenever you want to. As you have found out the hard way this is simply not the case.:mad:

basiaking

Thanks NonGeographicalMan, I'm sure you are right. The annoying thing is that I know that Tesco clubcard points are much better value when exchanged for Tesco deals rather than airmiles and have always used them for deals in the past. The only reason I have been converting them to airmiles is to get these New York flights. It's a shame that Tesco deals with Cosmos and Virgin can only be used on package holidays and not flights only! Oh well, I suppose I am going to have to use "proper money" to pay for my flights - blow!

giovanni

Do you think that its worth it collecting points for the eurostar as i assume the trains will never be fully booked? Opinions appreciated.

NonGeographicalMan

basiaking wrote: »

Thanks NonGeographicalMan, I'm sure you are right. The annoying thing is that I know that Tesco clubcard points are much better value when exchanged for Tesco deals rather than airmiles and have always used them for deals in the past. The only reason I have been converting them to airmiles is to get these New York flights. It's a shame that Tesco deals with Cosmos and Virgin can only be used on package holidays and not flights only! Oh well, I suppose I am going to have to use "proper money" to pay for my flights - blow!

The black out on return availability from JFK and Newark airports seems to start on about August 22nd or 23rd 2010 so is there no way at all you could take your 14 day holiday starting a week earlier so you come back by August 22nd? Alternatively I just checked flights to near by Philadelphia and Boston and they both have return availability on August 28th or August 29th. Washington DC is also available for all return dates during the second half of August. Of course unfortunately BA's Lower Class miles scheme (Air Miles) no longer allows Open Jawed flights in to one US airport and returning out of another.:mad:

IM

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

Unfortunately the last few days of August are one of the most overbooked periods of the year in relation to the available number of flights because even using every currently serviceable aircraft in use by every transatlantic airline not all of the demand from families needing to get their children back home for the start of the next school year can be met.

This means that knowing this British Airways (aka TheMileageCompany/AirMiles) take a view that they would rather sell every seat on those peak dates for cash knowing that they can and will sell around 100% of available seats for cash and for this reason absolutely no seats are ever made available to Air Miles on dates where this is the case. With the recent and future planned significant reductions in total long haul seat capacity by BA this situation will unfortunately only become even more extreme in future at busy times of year.

This is why collecting Air Miles is simply not to be recommended for anyone who needs to travel at peak travel periods like Easter, Xmas, New Year and summer holidays, friday afternoon, saturdays, monday morning and so on and so forth.

But no matter how often I try to make this clear other people here wrongly try to convince people that Air Miles are some wonderful freebie that let you travel on BA flights for nothing whenever you want to. As you have found out the hard way this is simply not the case.:mad:

And don't even go there (as the kids say...) about trying to get anywhere from outside London.
As if to prove this point, I've tried to get somewhere (anywhere) for a weekend in January.
Despite selecting the 'my dates are flexible' box, I just get 'no available flights' even for destinations they allegedly fly direct from Manchester.
I thought Dublin would have plenty of flights/availability. Nothing at all on miles. The best I could get was £903 for two returns in economy.

IM

giovanni wrote: »

Do you think that its worth it collecting points for the eurostar as i assume the trains will never be fully booked? Opinions appreciated.

I've certainly had Eurostar on Nectar points.

It took every single one my wife and I had ever collected (56,000) plus some cash - although that was in first class.

But I seem to remember I had to try a couple of alternative weekends before I got seats available for points redemption. So don't book accomodation before you get confirmation of the train (like I did).