Boost Your Airmiles Discussion Area

NonGeographicalMan

There is something very wrong somewhere as their route map at www.ba.com it clearly shows they fly from Manchester to Paris directly as BA (as well as to Milan, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and Hanover - far less places in Europe than one would expect from a major airport like Manchester) but even if I look up flights from Manchester to Paris at www.airmiles.co.uk in November or next February it only comes up with non BA airlines for a lot more than the 750 miles for Zone 1 that Paris is supposed to be in. And If I ask the Air Miles site to only look at BA flights from Manchester to Paris months ahead then no flights are offered.

Yet if I go to www.ba.com and look for cash flights for the same dates from Manchester to Paris I get shown a wide choice of BA operated flights with no problems at all. Except that they all connect at Heathrow and involve two flights. But BA's route map quite clearly shows direct flights from Manchester to Paris on their European map for Manchester destinations.

I really a think journalist needs to do a major investigation in to why no BA flights are available on any date between these two major international airports on which BA claims that there is a direct BA route on its route map.:eek::mad:

EDIT:- On checking their Route Maps again what looked like they were red lines from Manchester to several European destinations are in fact dark orange lines that represent FlyBe (most of these services formerly being operated by BA's regional operation under its own colours but are now part of FlyBe's operation). I presume this must be their justification for charging 1250 miles and not 750 miles to go with FlyBe. Because their definition of a Regional Airport where you pay the 500 miles surcharge merely actually seems to be any airport where the route you want to travel on is not operated by an aircraft flying under BA colours. And BA now only seems to operate direct flights itself outside the UK from Heathrow and Gatwick as far as I can tell. In other words if you don't live within easy reach of Heathrow or Gatwick then collecting Air Miles is now a very bad idea. Charter holidays may be different since most of them aren't operated by BA anyway and every holiday has a different Air Miles price, some of which are subject to offers or discounts, unlike Air Miles flights with BA where the rates for a route are now fixed and are never discounted any more.

How has BA managed to axe its overseas flights from all airports other than LGW and LHR without me becoming aware of it. They don't even fly to either Belfast or Dublin any more, not even from Heathrow. They only now fly from Heathrow domestically to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Newcastle and Manchester and from Gatwick to Glasgow, Inverness, Edinburgh, Manchester and Jersey. So the only Air Miles flight you can take from Manchester for 750 Air Miles is to London Heathrow or London Gatwick. Not exactly a very appealing choice of destinations. You can still use Air Miles on BA City Flyer flights from London City to Madrid, Ibiza, Barcelona, Palma, Nice, Geneva, Zurich and Frankfurt but availability tends to be very poor indeed compared to European flights from Gatwick and Heathrow operated by BA proper.

In view of the forthcoming BA strike I reckon its high time to spend all those Air Miles I have before I hear that BA have suddenly gone belly up and taken my Air Miles with them......................

Anyone who doesn't either live in the South East of England or alternatively has a regular need to fly from Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen or Inverness only to London Gatwick or Heathrow (and nowhere else) may as well forget collecting Air Miles:eek::mad:

Any

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

Anyone who doesn't either live in the South East of England or alternatively has a regular need to fly from Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen or Inverness only to London Gatwick or Heathrow (and nowhere else) may as well forget collecting Air Miles:eek::mad:

It won't be that fast... I would wait until very close to AFTER the strike, there will be huge availability anywhere for Airmiles holders because noone would want to pay to fly with them..

Any

That is not the part I wanted to quote!! But the part about the strike. You must have wrote it in just as I was pressing "quote" button.

mecrazybenz

I recently converted £166.50 Tesco clubcard vouchers to Airmiles with the intention if it being doubled up. Upon checking my Airmiles account I did get the miles at 60 miles per £2.50 but have not receievd the bonus miles. It has now been well over 28 days so I called Airmiles to query it.

They have advised me that I have previously converted airmiles in the past - 2004 to be precise using Tesco automatic opt-in conversion.

Now I do not recall ever opting in to have my clubcard vouchers automatically converted to Airmiles....Anyway they have clearly stated I am not eligible for the double miles. So I enquired about reversing the process which will get me my £166.50 back in Tesco vouchers. They have advised that the T&Cs state this is non-refundable (which I was aware of) but there is a process where it can be reveresed if they receive the instruction from Tesco.

So I have spoken to Tesco Freetime, explained the situation, and they were unable to provide any details of me authorising this automatic conversion as their systems does not go back that far to 2004. Also there is nothing they can do and suggested I write to Customer Relations.

So I have just emailed them but wanted some of your opinions on whether there is any hope for me to either get the bonus miles or atleat get my vouchers back......:mad:

NonGeographicalMan

mecrazybenz wrote: »

So I have just emailed them but wanted some of your opinions on whether there is any hope for me to either get the bonus miles or atleat get my vouchers back......:mad:

I suggest that you email Tesco's CEO, Sir Terry Leahy, if you want to get anywhere with this. The Tesco customer service people in Scotland are some of the most rude, terse and downright offhand and unhelpful that I have encountered in any major UK company and will definitely not help you with this but appeals to Sir Terry are often successful in reversing the customer services department's permanent No Can Do decisions. Actually you need to email Andrew Swaffied, CEO of The Mileage Company - BA's Air Miles and BA Miles miles issuing subsidiary) as well.

Sir Terry's email address is terry.leahy@uk.tesco.com

Andrew Swaffield's email address is andrew_swaffield@themileagecompany.com

Oh and thanks for the warning on this. I will now be contacting Air Miles to see if they think I have convered any Tesco Clubcard vouchers before I go ahead. Also I note that my online AirMiles statement now only covers the transactions for the last 12 months so how the hell do they claim to have records going back until 2004?

mecrazybenz

Thanks for your reply and the email addresses. I will see what response I get from customer relations before progressing it further up the chain....

And yes my Airmiles account only shows the last 12 months of activity too....my Tesco account also does not show any Airmiles orders from 2004 (it does show other orders but only upto 2007 though).

I am going to ask Tesco to provide some written proof that I authorised automatic conversions if this gets ugly...

clarabombshell

mecrazybenz wrote: »

I recently converted £166.50 Tesco clubcard vouchers to Airmiles with the intention if it being doubled up. Upon checking my Airmiles account I did get the miles at 60 miles per £2.50 but have not receievd the bonus miles. It has now been well over 28 days so I called Airmiles to query it.

They have advised me that I have previously converted airmiles in the past - 2004 to be precise using Tesco automatic opt-in conversion.

Now I do not recall ever opting in to have my clubcard vouchers automatically converted to Airmiles....Anyway they have clearly stated I am not eligible for the double miles. So I enquired about reversing the process which will get me my £166.50 back in Tesco vouchers. They have advised that the T&Cs state this is non-refundable (which I was aware of) but there is a process where it can be reveresed if they receive the instruction from Tesco.

So I have spoken to Tesco Freetime, explained the situation, and they were unable to provide any details of me authorising this automatic conversion as their systems does not go back that far to 2004. Also there is nothing they can do and suggested I write to Customer Relations.

So I have just emailed them but wanted some of your opinions on whether there is any hope for me to either get the bonus miles or atleat get my vouchers back......:mad:

Hi, this also happened to me - but I changed £350 of vouchers. When I didnt get the bonus miles, I rang them and they said that I had converted miles in 2004.
I looked through some really old paperwork and found an old airmiles statement and sure enough I had changed a very small amount back then.
It was my own fault tho', I really should have checked first and I had read the T&C's that stated they wouldnt reverse the process, so that is that!

The good thing is that I happened to be on the 80 mile rate, so I still got a few extra miles!

Good luck with getting them reversed though - keep us posted!

clarabombshell

ernie-money wrote: »

I've just taken advantage of the double miles promo and converted my Tesco points to airmiles. The miles have just been credited to my Airmiles account, but I got a lot more miles than I was expecting! In the description field on my recent transactions it says "52224636 TESCO MILES AWARD AT 80 MILE RATE" and it has indeed converted my points at a rate of 80 miles per £2.50 in points, (£238.50 in points = 7632 miles).
I'm obviously not complaining about this, but I'm just wondering why, and more importantly whether I will still get my double miles on top of this - any idea anyone?

Hi, I also get the 80 mile rate - around 5-6 years ago Airmiles did a promotion that allowed first time coverters (from tesco vouchers) to get the 80 mile rate. It seems Airmiles are still honouring this as I recently coverted vouchers and also still get this rate!

NonGeographicalMan

clarabombshell wrote: »

It was my own fault tho', I really should have checked first and I had read the T&C's that stated they wouldnt reverse the process, so that is that!

I really don't think that it was your fault when Tesco customer service were absolutely adamant that that their computer system didn't keep records of Clubcard activity more than 30 months ago and that was why they would no longer issue expired vouchers. Of course that was a lie on their part but they really can't have it both ways and now claim a transaction six years ago disqualifies you from the double rate Air Miles conversion.

Tesco's Clubcard part of their website clearly should have some way to inform you when you apply during the double rate conversion period if the double rate is not going to apply to any of the vouchers you are converting during this period.

jackieblack

I changed £406 in Tesco vouchers a week ago, having never (to my knowledge) converted Tesco vouchers to Airmiles before, and presuming I would get the double miles.
Now I'm panicking that I might have been automaticly opted-in to something I wasn't aware of years ago and won't get the double miles! :eek:

I've emailed Airmiles to ask them to confirm that I'm eligible for the offer.