Boost Your Airmiles Discussion Area

NonGeographicalMan

meinnit wrote: »

Not sure I understand the link between Quidco/TCB and Airmiles.

Normally speaking I find that you must give up cashback if you want to earn AirMiles. For instance if I buy anything online with my Egg Money Mastercard I get 1% cashback at the end of the year on all the money spent. On my Amex Duo card I get no cashback but only Air Miles at one for £10 spent that are hard to redeem instead.

Similarly any online suppliers selling you products off their website with a big flat rate Air Miles inducement usually have competitors who will sell you precisely the same product at a lower cash price from suppliers who also pay cashback through www.topcashback.co.uk One of the energy companies has a power tariff on which you specifically pay a higher rate to acquire Air Miles than you do on their cheaper non Air Miles tariff.

Of course you may be buying things for a business on a business credit card and so cashback probably wouldn't go to you personally and this is perhaps why you see Air Miles as being free?

I find its very rare indeed for Air Miles to prove to be a free lunch and there is usually a cheaper cash alternative on most goods and services where no Air Miles are earned but cashback may also be paid.

clarabombshell

My £350 of vouchers was from the last 2 years of normal shopping and fuel using tesco credit card and picking up voucher & offers from tesco clubs, such as spend £100 at direct and get 1000 points offer codes.
I have heard the cashback sites mentioned here quite a lot, but I must admit that I havn't investigated them.
The cashback might me a better option in terms of value?? But I do like the idea of airmiles, in that I cant just spend them on other things - that way I'm saving towards flights for a holiday without it coming out of my "real" money.

Any

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

Normally speaking I find that you must give up cashback if you want to earn AirMiles. For instance if I buy anything online with my Egg Money Mastercard I get 1% cashback at the end of the year on all the money spent. On my Amex Duo card I get no cashback but only Air Miles at one for £10 spent that are hard to redeem instead.

Similarly any online suppliers selling you products off their website with a big flat rate Air Miles inducement usually have competitors who will sell you precisely the same product at a lower cash price from suppliers who also pay cashback through www.topcashback.co.uk One of the energy companies has a power tariff on which you specifically pay a higher rate to acquire Air Miles than you do on their cheaper non Air Miles tariff.

Of course you may be buying things for a business on a business credit card and so cashback probably wouldn't go to you personally and this is perhaps why you see Air Miles as being free?

I find its very rare indeed for Air Miles to prove to be a free lunch and there is usually a cheaper cash alternative on most goods and services where no Air Miles are earned but cashback may also be paid.

Most of the deals with Tesco actually works at profit.
Ie buy Leona Lewis CD for £8.57 and get extra 250 points = £10 in Tesco deals (theoretically).
And that is what I think Meinnit means.

NonGeographicalMan

Any wrote: »

Most of the deals with Tesco actually works at profit.
Ie buy Leona Lewis CD for £8.57 and get extra 250 points = £10 in Tesco deals (theoretically).

What about all the catches with the four times Clubcard offers like a very restricted range of things you can buy, the very annoying need to send off off for vouchers to redeem (so stopping you using the four times promotions on many a spontaneous occasion eg Cafe Rouge etc) with Tesco Clubcard partners and the final biggest catch of all with vouchers expiring after only two years (unlike Air Miles where they remain valid forever so long as you collect one new mile per year).

Also I bet these CD promos only happen on CDs that nobody wants any more and/or that are available much cheaper from online retailers.

Most of my Air Miles were collected in days before cashback websites or cashback credit cards when in effect the cost of collection was nil extra but now there is a significant additional collection cost usually equivalent to the redemption value of the Air Miles it seems to make much more sense to have the cash, especially as cash is valid on any flight and Air Miles are not. For instance with BA's new summers service to Palma, Mallorca from London City airport there is only one pair of dates in the entire four month long season on which you can get a return ticket on Air Miles. And that return is only for a four day long trip...............

Any

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

What about all the catches with the four times Clubcard offers like a very restricted range of things you can buy, the very annoying need to send off off for vouchers to redeem (so stopping you using the four times promotions on many a spontaneous occasion eg Cafe Rouge etc) with Tesco Clubcard partners and the final biggest catch of all with vouchers expiring after only two years (unlike Air Miles where they remain valid forever so long as you collect one new mile per year).

Also I bet these CD promos only happen on CDs that nobody wants any more and/or that are available much cheaper from online retailers.

Most of my Air Miles were collected in days before cashback websites or cashback credit cards when in effect the cost of collection was nil extra but now there is a significant additional collection cost usually equivalent to the redemption value of the Air Miles it seems to make much more sense to have the cash, especially as cash is valid on any flight and Air Miles are not. For instance with BA's new summers service to Palma, Mallorca from London City airport there is only one pair of dates in the entire four month long season on which you can get a return ticket on Air Miles. And that return is only for a four day long trip...............

Listen, I am not arguing with you over the value of the points, I am just saying that this is where Meinnit is saying he got all the points from.

I myself do Quidco and never buy anything at Tesco I do not need.

meinnit

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

Normally speaking I find that you must give up cashback if you want to earn AirMiles. For instance if I buy anything online with my Egg Money Mastercard I get 1% cashback at the end of the year on all the money spent. On my Amex Duo card I get no cashback but only Air Miles at one for £10 spent that are hard to redeem instead.

Ok I think there is maybe some confusion here. The bonus points on offer were quite significant eg. 500 points for buying a £8 CD. This would outweigh any cashback on offer. Does this answer your question?

I don't actually have a credit card that offers Airmiles. I am simply converting points collected using Clubcard into Airmiles.

Take a look at the Boosting Clubcard points discussion on a heads up on any points offers..

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1079599

lullybubs

I regularly receive approx 80.00 per quarter in Tesco Clubcard vouchers. We have a Tesco platinum credit card and put all our grocery shopping from Tesco's on it and any other shopping always goes on our credit card. . Instead of using our debit card we use our credit card, then clear the balance each month. It's just a matter of making your credit card work for you. Then we generally convert our Clubcard vouchers to airmiles. 80.00 per quarter on average will convert to 7600 airmiles per year. Not bad for just using your credit card in a savvy way to your advantage.

NonGeographicalMan

meinnit wrote: »

Ok I think there is maybe some confusion here. The bonus points on offer were quite significant eg. 500 points for buying a £8 CD. This would outweigh any cashback on offer. Does this answer your question?

Yes it does answer it although I'm really a little baffled at why they would offer 500 Points on a spend of only £8 when that is essentially worth at least £12 as 500 points is equal to 120 Air Miles at the normal conversion rate and one Air Mile is broadly speaking more or less worth 10p in flight value on most routes (eg 1500 Air Miles typically buys a Zone Two European BA flight that BA would usually sell for around £150, even though clearly BA prices can be both a lot higher and lower according to the season although when their fares are a lot higher there is usually no Air Miles availability at all on many lower frequency routes).

Given that Lloyds only give you one mile for every £10 spent on an Amex Duo card I would also suspect that one Air Mile mile costs Lloyds itself close to 10p or 1% of £10. This makes sense as it is about the same rate of cashback (1%) that several credit cards were paying and that the Egg Money Mastercard still does pay (even though the others have mainly cut their cashback rates since the economic downturn).

But yes you are right if one can get £5 of Clubcard vouchers effectively worth £12 in flights for an £8 CD - or worth £24 at the current double conversion rate to Air Miles - this is an absurdly good deal, especially if the CD is also one that you enjoy the music on. I can't actually think how such an Clubcard Points reward rate is any way logical though. By contrast it makes perfect sense that an energy supplier might give you £500 to join them on Dual Fuel as the average bill is over £1,000 and their profit on a customer must be £200 per year or more.

Anyhow I will certainly keep an eye on the thread you mention as those crazy Clubcard points deals on CDs etc seem by far the best way to accumulate Air Miles and/or to get cheap ferry fares to Ireland or cheap days out at theme parks etc, etc (especially when not getting the double Clubcard points to Air Miles conversion rate).

I usually do my grocery shopping at Tesco because both their long opening hours at Superstores and/or the convenience of their Express stores usually suit my shopping pattern. I am a budget conscious shopper but the physical environment of an Aldi or Lidl stall and the kind of shoppers they usually have makes me feel immediately depressed and they also seem to generally stock a very poor quality selection of fruit, vegetables and fish and meat. Asda is my idea of an acceptable budget store but there is not one conveniently located for my usual shoppng pattern and they do not have any Express stores.

NonGeographicalMan

lullybubs wrote: »

I regularly receive approx 80.00 per quarter in Tesco Clubcard vouchers. We have a Tesco platinum credit card and put all our grocery shopping from Tesco's on it and any other shopping always goes on our credit card. . Instead of using our debit card we use our credit card, then clear the balance each month. It's just a matter of making your credit card work for you. Then we generally convert our Clubcard vouchers to airmiles. 80.00 per quarter on average will convert to 7600 airmiles per year. Not bad for just using your credit card in a savvy way to your advantage.

I would be interested to know what the annual spend on that credit card amounts to. I'm guessing it would have to be getting on for £20,000 per annum. This would only be £200 in cashback at 1% whereas 7,600 Air Miles should get you around £750 worth of flights. However obviously the recent double clubcard points has made the deal artificially good lately and I imagine at some point Tesco will drop back to single Clubcard points and do more with fuel promotions more of the time or whatever.

I think the main annoyance for a single person household on the Tesco Clubcard deals is the two year voucher expiry window and the fact that you may not have accumulated enough of them to buy a ferry ticket to Ireland etc in the two year window. Obviously Air Miles conversion overcomes this but the normal conversion rate is not as good value as using them on Clubcard Deals like ferry tickets or meals or hotel rooms etc, etc...........

However BA has annoyed me a lot with splitting the Air Miles scheme in two and not allowing one way flights (very annoying as One Ways are often useful for driving holidays in the USA or Australia etc or even in Europe and often overcome availability problems at a particular airport) or any stopovers on flights to Australia and NZ and/or round the world tickets but still allowing all those things to BA Miles holders. Also if BA got in to enough trouble the whole Air Miles scheme might just fold................

Any

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

I think the main annoyance for a single person household on the Tesco Clubcard deals is the two year voucher expiry window and the fact that you may not have accumulated enough of them to buy a ferry ticket to Ireland etc in the two year window. Obviously Air Miles conversion overcomes this but the normal conversion rate is not as good value as using them on Clubcard Deals like ferry tickets or meals or hotel rooms etc, etc...........

Lot of people managed to get them credited back to their account over the phone once there were due to expire. But it's up to the discretion of Tesco.

If that fails I would probably take the highest voucher you've got (let's say £10) and order £10 to restaurant which is only £2.50 voucher and they will credit the rest back to your account...

I know it is lot of faffing around, but might just get you there...