Boost Your Airmiles Discussion Area

jackieblack

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

I expect you mean you got 10 miles more on the whole tankful (or about 1 mpg extra). A 10mph difference is very unlikely unless you drove with one tankful entirely round town and with the other tankful entirely at 56mph on the motorway.

These are variable you seem to have neglected to tell us about.

Not wanting to hi-jack the thread by continuing an off-topic post but...

No, (although on checking it was 6.6mpg difference, not 10 - was working from memory before, without checking - brain went mid 40s -mid 30s = 10 )

I filled up on Friday, at Tesco.
On Saturday drove to Alton Towers - approx 200 miles, 90% of which is dual carriageway/motorway
On Monday filled up at Esso in Uttoxeter, drove home, same route.
Filled up again yesterday, at local Tesco.

According to fuelly.com I got 43mpg between fill-ups Fri-Mon and only 34.6mpg (:eek:) between fill-ups Mon-Tues. (15% less mpg on Esso fuel)

It makes no sense to me and I can't explain it, but the only variable was Tesco fuel v Esso fuel - all other factors were the same (same drivers, same number of passengers in car, same weight of luggage in boot, same route, same journey time (within a few minutes) so no significant difference in speeds driven at........

NonGeographicalMan

jackieblack wrote: »

It makes no sense to me and I can't explain it, but the only variable was Tesco fuel v Esso fuel - all other factors were the same (same drivers, same number of passengers in car, same weight of luggage in boot, same route, same journey time (within a few minutes) so no significant difference in speeds driven at........

It sounds to me like you either got a figure wrong somewhere in what was entered with www.fuelly.com or that the Esso garage had tampered with its pumps to supply short measure. This would never happen at a head office run site but might happen with a small independent Esso site There have been prosecutions of garages that have deliberately supplied short measure to customers.

I find with Super Unleaded I don't get more performance but I do get more mpg by 2 or 3 mpg than ordinary Premium Unleaded of the same brand. As this is 6 to 10% more mpg I suppose the 8p or so extra charged for Super Unleaded ought to be worthwhile but I often find it hard to make myself think this way, especially when there is no discernible performance gain with super unleaded (even though my car is an MR2 Roadster sports car and I do push it hard at times). Which claimed you get no more MPG with Super Unleaded but I think that's because they didn't do tests with drivers who push their cars very hard. Under hard acceleration Super Unleaded tends to be more efficient in reaching the same speed.

abrown1982

Has anyone tried this?

airmiles.co.uk/collect/the-times/the-times-subscription (cant post as a link, sorry)

From my reading of it, you could subscribe, then cancel within the first week and still get the 750 airmiles for a cost of £6? Anyone see any issues with this?

NonGeographicalMan

abrown1982 wrote: »

The times subscription

Anyone see any issues with this?

From www.airmiles.co.uk/collect/the-times/the-times-subscription/outside-offers%3Fpostcode%3Drh55ga

Subscriptions Terms and Conditions

*This subscription package does not include home delivery of the papers. Offer available to UK residents (excluding Channel Islands), aged 18 or over, paying by Direct Debit. Price is calculated based on cover price, minus quoted discount. At the time of printing, the price is £6 a week for a 48 week subscription. You may cancel subscriptions within seven days of your subscription order. After this, you must give three months’ written notice to cancel, with the earliest cancellation date being 36 weeks into a 48 week subscription. Your subscription will continue automatically after 48 weeks, until you cancel it. Once renewed onto a 48 week subscription, News International reserves the right to change the weekly subscription price with 30 days’ notice. You have the right to cancel your subscription within that 30 day notice period where the weekly subscription price is varlied. Times membership is subject to terms and conditions - please see timesplus.co.uk for details. You can opt out of Times on request. To collect Airmiles using this special limited offer, your application must be received by 30 September 2010, and made in accordance with the above subscription terms and conditions. For valid applications, you’ll collect 750 Airmiles, which will be added to your Airmiles account within 60 days of your subscription start date. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer and is limited and subject to availability. No cash or other alternative is available.

Airmiles Terms and Conditions

Only one Airmiles offer per household, in the event of multiple applications per household only the first application received by The Times Newspapers Limited will receive the Airmiles offer. To obtain Airmiles under this special limited offer, applications must be received by 30 September 2010 and made in accordance with the subscriptions terms and conditions above. Valid applications receive 750 Airmiles, which will be credited to your Airmiles account within 60 days of your subscription start date. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer, is limited and is subject to availability. Offer non-transferrable, no cash or other alternative available. All bookings are strictly subject to availability and Airmiles Customer and Booking Terms and Conditions and our Carriers’ Conditions of Carriage. By signing up for this promotion you will automatically become a member of Airmiles, and are agreeing that we will be passing your name, address and email address to Airmiles so that they can apply the Airmiles to your account and/or set up an account for you. Airmiles will use your information to administer your account and to contact you with information and offers from Airmiles and their partners, to help you collect and redeem your miles. To update your preferences, view the Airmiles privacy policy and to see full Airmiles Terms and Conditions, please visit www.airmiles.co.uk

So I suppose it depends on whether you think if you cancel within 7 days they will still feel their Terms and Conditions oblige them to still give you the 750 Air Miles after 60 days. I can see that they probably won't provide them without quibble and that a long series of correspondence might be necessary to have any chance of getting them.

I suspect a lawyer on their side would interpret the thing as saying you only get the 750 Air Miles if you don't cancel for 60 days. If you don't cancel successfully within the first 7 days (they may dispute that you have done) you are then locked in to the whole subscription at a cost of a whopping £312. You or your lawyer will argue that they became duty bound to give you the miles after 60 days regardless of whether or not you successfully exercised your rights to cancel within 7 days.

So the question is (for some reason I have visions of a sharp eyed Telegraph marketing person possibly adding the word "punk") can you afford to employ a lawyer to get 750 Air Miles or are you a good enough amateur lawyer to successfully represent yourself. Also what court might such a case be heard in and what would happen about costs if you lose. Hopefully it would only be heard in the Small Claims Court (where each party bears its own costs) due to the very low nominal value attached by The Mileage Company to each Air Mile.

So the question is (resists temptation to add the word "punk" again) do you still feel brave enough to risk paying £312 to get 750 Air Miles worth a maximum of about £80 in flight value. Personally speaking I wouldn't but you may have a different view? It would certainly be interesting to hear how you get on with the case if you do subscribe.;)

abrown1982

Thanks for the response NonGeographicalMan.

Talk of lawyers etc is obviously taking it all a bit too seriously

The question is, is a cancelled subscription, a valid application?

After looking through the terms and conditions on timesplus.co.uk I'm under the impression that if you cancel in the first 7 days then all monies are refunded and it is as if you never had a subscription. So based on this I'm going to say that its not an option.

Ohh well!

NonGeographicalMan

abrown1982 wrote: »

After looking through the terms and conditions on timesplus.co.uk I'm under the impression that if you cancel in the first 7 days then all monies are refunded and it is as if you never had a subscription. So based on this I'm going to say that its not an option.

Ohh well!

I suppose that the keen collector of Air Miles will say that this is over 2.5 Air Miles per £1 spent compared to 1 Air Mile for £10 spent on Amex. On the other hand 750 Air Miles are worth a best about £75 (often they are worth less on many long haul routes) so you are still £235 worse off unless you were going to want to read that newspaper every day anyway.

The difficulty in filing an application in the Small Claims Court if they don't pay up is that nominally an Air Mile is officially worth far less than a penny so you would be awarded almost nothing even if you won your claim. On the other hand the cost to the newspaper of employing a lawyer to appear would be £1,000 or more so that they might just give in and let you have the 750 Air Miles.

At the end of the day I think there have been far easier ways to get a lot of Air Miles for little spend like the CDs being sold at Tesco for £1 with 1,000 Clubcard Points or whatever. The business about them not paying out on the Air Miles for 60 days sounds to me like it is a deliberate catch to stop people cancelling within 7 days and still getting their Air Miles.

Savvy_Spender_South

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

Answer

A. Tesco only sells fuel off its large superstore forecourts in large towns. You won't find any of these conveniently situated driving long distance cross country.

B. Tesco fuel is widely considered to be watered down detergent filled crud that gets less miles per gallon than decent Shell or Esso unleaded fuel and also probably gives your catalytic converter an artificially short life.



In short your mistake is probably to think firstly that Tesco fuel is as good a fuel as decent fuel from Shell or Esso and secondly to think that Air Miles is a reliable currency that will actually get you flights in return for instead of being devalued as fast and as often as it possibly can be by Willy Walsh and the rest of his new O'Learyesque like colleagues at BA.:mad:

Fortunately, working hard in school means i can afford to live where i like and not in the sticks, i can get fuel from a large forecourt if i choose too, lucky me.If it is long distance, i send a member of staff.

My fleet use Diesel, no problems at my end with random dip tests to meet input and emission regs, maybe its just the petrol heads that suffer?

I fear the mistake is yours. I made no reference to the quality of fuel in my question, but the collection and eward ratio. not to worry, your mistake but no problem. Also, agin with false reference, no mention of fake currency value. my post was one of curiosity doe to earlier posts commenting on the collection options Airmiles customers were experiencing.

Does you 1% egg card open my doors for you? try an AMEX Black, it will go nice with your MR2 :rotfl:

Savvy_Spender_South

The current offer of 1500 free miles for opening an Air miles duo card is actually half decent. several people i know have opened one just for the freebie, then plan to use the miles for a weekend in New Forrest or couple of free magazine subscriptions et al. For no other reason than its a give away, everyone should at least grab and use this freebie.

blindman

Savvy_Spender_South wrote: »

Fortunately, working hard in school means i can afford to live where i like and not in the sticks, i can get fuel from a large forecourt if i choose too, lucky me.If it is long distance, i send a member of staff.

Obviously the wrong school as it's "I" :D

Chauffeur, Butler or Housekeeper :D

Does you 1% egg card open my doors for you? try an AMEX Black, it will go nice with your MR2 :rotfl:

Methinks you do not need to be on MSE :D

Good answer BTW

Grammar schoole educated
Degree qualified
Buys petrol when wife says the car needs it

NonGeographicalMan

Savvy_Spender_South wrote: »

Fortunately, working hard in school means i can afford to live where i like and not in the sticks, i can get fuel from a large forecourt if i choose too, lucky me.If it is long distance, i send a member of staff.

I wonder why you visit this website at all then as you quite clearly seem to regard Moneysaving as an activity for people who have not been as financially successful as you.

I fear the mistake is yours. I made no reference to the quality of fuel in my question, but the collection and reward ratio.

And my point was that Tesco fuel is often not as conveniently located or of as good a quality as that available from the traditional petrol networks. So there is a cost in relentlessly hunting down these extra Air Miles that you make it clear that you in any case obviously don't need because your superior education has provided you with a level of income that means you can in any case afford to buy any air ticket you want.

Does you 1% egg card open my doors for you? try an AMEX Black, it will go nice with your MR2 :rotfl:

I associate the Amex Black card with people who enjoy booking the most expensive hotel rooms and drinking the most expensive champagne (often at their company's expense) just for the hell of it rather than with Moneysavers who would tend to be attracted to this website.

Still if you think that a card that is not nearly as widely accepted as Mastercard or Visa and that makes the average hotel see you as a target for all kinds of unnecessary ripoff add on services is useful then that's entirely up to you.

Savvy_Spender_South wrote: »

The current offer of 1500 free miles for opening an Air miles duo card is actually half decent. several people i know have opened one just for the freebie, then plan to use the miles for a weekend in New Forrest or couple of free magazine subscriptions et al. For no other reason than its a give away, everyone should at least grab and use this freebie.

Hang on I thought that you had indicated that your superior education meant that your time was worth far more per hour than the £75 or so you might get from all the faff of having to fill out card application forms and then being able to book your weekend in the New Forest only on those few nights per year when hotels there are willing to accept the cheapskate currency of Air Miles.

It sounds like you are actually not nearly as flush with funds as you have tried to make out and are in fact just trying to score a few cheap points off another forum member.:mad: