Boost Your Airmiles Discussion Area

josie

Yes, I must admit, I'm a bit worried about the future of BA, esp having 10,550 miles sitting in my account!

I would say you need to book at least 6 months in advance, for specific flights you want, but assuming you're organised then I've not had a problem this way and DH & I have been to New York twice on the dates we wanted.

NonGeographicalMan

josie wrote: »

I would say you need to book at least 6 months in advance, for specific flights you want, but assuming you're organised then I've not had a problem this way and DH & I have been to New York twice on the dates we wanted.

Try booking 11 months ahead for New Zealand and you will deserve a prize if you find even a single date available. Try booking now to fly to Lerwick in the Shetlands or Kirkwall in the Orkney isles early next June from Glasgow or Aberdeen and you will hit the same problem. Where BA thinks they can sell all the seats for cash they don't release any at all for Air Miles. Why do you think I am sitting here on holiday in Mallorca at this moment having got a last minute flight out here with FlyThomasCook from Gatwick and having booked the return in a couple of weeks time with FlyBe to Southampton. Answer because there were only about 6 dates in the entire summer season where there were any miles flights from London City to Palma and Easyjet never sell any of their non allocated seats in peak season at a cheap price even months ahead.

If you want to fly to Frankfurt or New York or Cape Town or Rio then fine you just need to collect the large total of Air Miles required and there are quite a lot of seats available because there is fierce competition on those routes and BA's flights are rarely fully booked. But if you want to go somewhere that BA has a cosy near monopoly on the two airport pairs then even booking 9 months ahead sadly frequently doesn't get you a seat.:eek::mad:

And as for Australia and NZ it isn't worth it anyway due to the prohibition on stopovers in the Far East and the fact that you can't fly in to a different airport in Australasia from the one you fly back from. Needless to say that customers in the First Class BA Miles scheme instead of the Steerage Air Miles scheme can of course do both those things and/or also use their BA Miles to upgrade a cash economy ticket to Club. This is yet another facility denied by BA to us unwashed trash who only collect the downmarket Air Miles product.:eek::mad:

Clowance

As someone new to airmiles - but luckily, planning on a trip to the US next year which is at least possible judging by the above comments - is it possible to insure trips booked by airmiles? Any advice appreciated.
For example, tesco insurance used to cover tesco clubcard points holidays but almost nobody else did.

jackieblack

adoreholidays wrote: »

Hi jackieblack I just joined airmiles when they done the doubling up earlier this year and when my account was set up etc I made several transactions through their estore mainly to tesco.com middle march until middle April but have never seen any miles added so gave up as had no idea how it worked as far as i was concerned I was clicking where it told me too and there is no other information I done about nine different transactions but heard nothing

There is a system for chasing Airmiles that aren't credited automatically, but I think you have to chase within 4 months so you may be able to chase them up on your later purchases.
I can't post the link because you have to be logged in and the form then pre-fills the account number, but if you go to the estore home page and click on missing miles (in the yellow bar, to the right of the searcg estore for.... box) you will see the link to the claim form.

jackieblack

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

But to get your Air Miles you clearly chose to give up the 4% cashback available from www.topcashback.co.uk for online transactions with Jessops and the 3% cashback on the laptop with Tesco Direct so Air Miles do have a real cost and are not free as you wrongly seem to continue to imagine.

That's true, but if you're chasing a particular number of Airmiles, then this is more useful than cash back, which doesn't help boost your airmiles total (note the title of this thread... Boost Your Airmiles discussion area)

NonGeographicalMan

Clowance wrote: »

As someone new to airmiles - but luckily, planning on a trip to the US next year which is at least possible judging by the above comments - is it possible to insure trips booked by airmiles? Any advice appreciated.

Their own policy covers you apart from a £50 excess. I'm not sure what they would translate that £50 in to in terms of Air Miles you don't bet back though. Or perhaps you get them all back but are expected to pay £50 before they will do so...................

See www.airmiles.co.uk/spend/insurance-summary-of-cover?from

Their Annual Policy for worldwide travel costs 1200 Air Miles or £75 (including 17 days winter sports insurance) but they do offer single trip insurance too.

See www.airmiles.co.uk/travel/insurance/search.do?action=showForm

NonGeographicalMan

jackieblack wrote: »

That's true, but if you're chasing a particular number of Airmiles, then this is more useful than cash back, which doesn't help boost your airmiles total (note the title of this thread... Boost Your Airmiles discussion area)

I'm sure there are some routes where its not that difficult to book with Air Miles but I would hate anyone to chase and hit their AirMiles total for their chosen destination only to find that they can't travel with Air Miles at the only times of year when their job, university, school etc allows them to take holiday.

In the case of many routes that is a very real and not an imaginary problem if trying to book with Air Miles.

Any

jackieblack wrote: »

That's true, but if you're chasing a particular number of Airmiles, then this is more useful than cash back, which doesn't help boost your airmiles total (note the title of this thread... Boost Your Airmiles discussion area)

You are right, but as Airmiles on most of their shopping give 1 Airmiles per £10 spend that is hell of an expensive Airmile point..

That means that to fly to Prague you need 2000 Airmiles (from Manchester, that annoys me so much that they add another 500 miles to fly from such a big and central airport), so let's say that you need to spend £20000...

Where cashback is on average 2-5%, sometimes more... so you would get £400-£1000 cashback - for that I can buy 4-10 flights to Prague.. On dates I want.

It is O.K. boosting your Airmiles, but people should be aware that it is not the most profitable way... Martin himself always says "have a look if you can get it cheaper elsewhere"...

jackieblack

Any wrote: »

You are right, but as Airmiles on most of their shopping give 1 Airmiles per £10 spend that is hell of an expensive Airmile point..

I've never got less than 1 for every £5, often 1 for every £2 spent.

Any

jackieblack wrote: »

I've never got less than 1 for every £5, often 1 for every £2 spent.

The shops I shop at are mostly £10 a mile, sometimes there are promotions - however where there are promotions they are also usually promotion for special % on Quidco...

You can get Avong 10% cashback and hotel Chocolate the same in promotion...

It's just worth noting that you cannot blindly go for it without checking other options first, that is all I am saying..

Don't take me wrong, there are still shops I do through Airmiles - ie Screwfix is (or at least wasn't) on Quidco at all when I needed new bathroom... just saying I always check out all my options (Airmiles, Nectar, Quidco...)