Boost Your Airmiles Discussion Area

GettingItRight

I see that £5.05 can be currently earnt if people apply (and are approved) for the Lloyds TSB Airmiles cards through the cashback website, topcashback. It is probably the same on the other cashback websites, but I have only just seen this in the past 10 minutes.

Might be worth thinking about for anyone who has been considering getting one. I believe you can still get the free flights voucher as well.

I have the airmiles card anyway and have only just started to use it again after a long period of inactivity (I received a letter saying that they were going to close the account if I do not use it soon).

Just noticed the cashback today when I was running a search on the topcashback site for "overseas money". I thought it might be something to note, if it has not been noted on here already.

I have just reached 4000 miles after 5 years. Still a long way to go before I can claim my Rio De Janeiro flights target

steve1500

You can boost your airmiles by recycling mobiles through airmiles & its freepost. Doubt if is any good for those phones that are worth a few quid, but mine are worth nothing & get 50 miles for each one http://www.airmiles.co.uk/collect/recycling/mobilerecycling/mobile-recycling

NonGeographicalMan

GettingItRight wrote: »

I have just reached 4000 miles after 5 years. Still a long way to go before I can claim my Rio De Janeiro flights target

Its taken me 20 years to collect my current 11,500 Air Miles and the only redemptions I have ever made are two of about 1,500 miles each for return flights to Italy and Austria many years ago.

I still wait in eternal hope that they may one day offer a Round The World ticket again with a certain number of stops allowed

The main reason I have used my Air Miles so irregularly is because availability is usually so poor on the routes I want to travel on at the time at which I want to book (although availability is permanently poor to all destinations in Australia and basically non existent to New Zealand).

I hadn't collected any Air Miles at all for three years before they threatened to close my account down and confiscate all my Air Miles for inactivity but I now have my Shell Drivers Club card linked up to Air Miles collection again (instead of the petrol cash back vouchers) and also use my Lloyds Amex card when I lose my Egg Money Mastercard 1% cashback card by leaving it in yet another supermarket PIN number entry machine where they fail to remind me to remove it while I am busy packing shopping. I seem to lose my Egg Money Mastercard about every 6 months for this reason and getting it replaced usually takes a couple of weeks.

I also spent on the Lloyds Amex card in Dec and Jan when they offered another couple of hundred Air Miles if you spent £300 on the Amex card during this period.

GettingItRight

hehe

I have to admit when I once came to this website and read about the difficulty people have in using Airmiles to book their flights, I begun to wonder if it really would be worth to keep following the Airmiles path. I did come close to booking a European flight once with the Airmiles, but then I decided just to use Easyjet. My personal rule with flying is that if the location is no more than a 3 hour flight, take whatever flight company is cheapest. If it is more than 3 hours, still go economy but perhaps avoid the budget airlines (if they still fly beyond 3 hours).

I have a cashback card, but I have to go out of my way to pay it off now. I am not going to be able to pay the card off online soon, as the bank will only allow its current account holders this pleasure.

NonGeographicalMan

GettingItRight wrote: »

hehe :)I have a cashback card, but I have to go out of my way to pay it off now. I am not going to be able to pay the card off online soon, as the bank will only allow its current account holders this pleasure.

Which cashback card is that? I would get rid of it and get either the Egg or the Capital One ones that pay 1% (although with an annual subscription of a few quid that luckily my old Egg Mastercard doesn't have as I joined before the fee came in).

Luckily you are trying to collect enough Air Miles to go to Rio and not to Nice or Sydney and Air Miles always seems to have good availability on that route. Having said that you would in theory get better value for money taking a load of return flights from Gatwick to Aberdeen on FlyBe at only 750 Air Miles return each than to blow the whole lot om going to Rio. But then who wants to go to Aberdeen except possibly between mid May and mid July when they have very long daylight hours in northern Scotland.

Clowance

I just wondered if anyone who wanted to go down under has ever booked airmiles flights to a half way point (?stopover opportunity) followed by paying for flights for the rest of the trip?
Not sure if this is an uneconomic way to go.
My current airmiles balance is zero, so its not likely to affect me anyway!

NonGeographicalMan

Clowance wrote: »

I just wondered if anyone who wanted to go down under has ever booked airmiles flights to a half way point (?stopover opportunity) followed by paying for flights for the rest of the trip?

I am sure they will have done since Air Miles sales staff constantly propose to customers that you should book an Air Miles flight to say Malaysia, Singapore or Bangkok and then buy a regular cash fare from their to Australia or NZ if you complain that Air Miles tickets to Australia do not allow a stop over in the Far East (not charge extra but just don't allow it and force you to sit in Economy for nearly 24 hours despite all the health advice not to do so).

However as it is 8,000 Air Miles to Singapore, Bangkok, Malaysia, Hong Kong etc and 10,000 Air Miles to Australia this is in my view very bad advice indeed by Air Miles staff. This is because a ticket from the Far East to Australia basically costs as much in cash as one from the UK to the East Coast of the USA. A true half way point in terms of Air Miles required is actually in the Middle East in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha or Bahrain but these are all only a third of the way to Australia and the cash fares from those places to Australia also reflect that fact.

If you want to go to Australia on Air Miles then in my view you either collect the 10,000 Air Miles or after you have looked at the very poor availability and the prevention of stop overs in the Far East you probably conclude you are much better off using them on a long haul route where a stopover is not normally part of the journey and availability is usually much better like a flight to South Africa or South America. However even flying to South Africa or South America you might often want to do an Open Jaw flight say in to Cape Town and out of Durban or in Rio in Brazil and out of Santiago in Chile so again Air Miles are restricted in a totally unnecessary and unfair way compared to cash fares (where flying in to one airport and out of another usually costs very little or no more money than returning from the one you flew in to instead of just being prohibited as is now the case with inflexible Air Miles).

The prohibition on Air Miles customers booking one way flights after the split with BA Miles (before that happened they could and I did book one way flights for no extra charge) is one of the main reasons why Air Miles have become so much more unattractive in recent times along with the mileage rate no longer regularly being discounted in the off peak seasons on routes as they used to be for many destinations (especially to the USA) and the unreasonably high mileage rates now charged to the USA (nearly as much as going a lot further afield like Singapore, South Africa or South America).

That is why people should be so careful about accruing yet more Air Miles instead of accruing cash as an alternative. For instance Tesco Clubcard vouchers can be spent in store at face value or redeemed for 3 to 1 value Tesco Clubcard Deals (on theme park and attraction visits, meals out, breakdown membership or ferry tickets) instead and credit card spend can earn around 1 % cashback with Mastercards from Egg and Capital One or American Express.

The more Air Miles are in circulation the more the accountants of www.themileagecompany.com (the BA subsidiary that runs BA Miles and Air Miles) feel exposed and the more they try to alter conditions to put you off redeeming your miles and/or just try to confiscate your Air Miles if you haven't collected any more of them in the last few years or now if you have kept them in the drawer as paper Air Miles currency as you were originally always advised to (you were told only to send them in if you needed to book a flight).

Ecky-thump

I have been reading these posts for a few years now and have concluded that I will not be using my airmiles for any flights. I have 3,229 airmiles and I see from comments on here that the booking of flights is fraught with so much difficulty, which we, as pensioners, would find stressful.
I think that it is not worth saving airmiles now. I gained them with purchases, online of late because of the warning sent to continue or else, and only to keep the ones I already had. Now, of course, the ones I have are not going to be used.
We live near Bristol. They do not use Bristol International Airport for any of their flights, and to travel to London and elsewhere to get a flight is not an option for us. And yes, I know about the 500 airmiles it costs for using local airports, and I'm pretty disgusted with that!
What is needed is a way to use my airmiles locally, in the UK, and to be a profit in the process to the operator. This is just a suggestion. If there is no other way found to use up airmiles then mine will die along with me when my time comes. Maybe that's just what the accountants want! ;-)

GettingItRight

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

Which cashback card is that? I would get rid of it and get either the Egg or the Capital One ones that pay 1% (although with an annual subscription of a few quid that luckily my old Egg Mastercard doesn't have as I joined before the fee came in).

Luckily you are trying to collect enough Air Miles to go to Rio and not to Nice or Sydney and Air Miles always seems to have good availability on that route. Having said that you would in theory get better value for money taking a load of return flights from Gatwick to Aberdeen on FlyBe at only 750 Air Miles return each than to blow the whole lot om going to Rio. But then who wants to go to Aberdeen except possibly between mid May and mid July when they have very long daylight hours in northern Scotland.

With regards to my cashback card, it was a Halifax Mastercard. It had quite a good deal at the start, offering 2% cashback in supermarkets and 1% on everything else. It then fell down to 1% in supermarkets and 0.5% everywhere else. I can claim cashback in lots of £15. I now only use it once in a while, as it does not feel as great as it once did. The cashback card I have does not require an annual fee, if it did, I most likely drop it.

I am going to have a review of all my credit cards soon. I am sure I could discard one of them. For spending, I would ideally like:

1 x Airmiles card
1 x Cashback card
1 x 0% Foreign Purchases card

The 0% foreign purchases card is a not a huge issue if I cannot get one. It is just because my partner lives in Lisbon and I go to see her every month or two. For this reason it would be nice to have such a card, although I hardly spend any money when I'm over there anyway.

I have a Visa credit card with Nationwide which I used for trips abroad. It was originally great with 0% on foreign purchases, but I think it has shot up to about 2.50%. I do not have much desire to keep it now, although I still use it when in Portugal.

NonGeographicalMan

Ecky-thump wrote: »

What is needed is a way to use my airmiles locally, in the UK, and to be a profit in the process to the operator. This is just a suggestion. If there is no other way found to use up airmiles then mine will die along with me when my time comes. Maybe that's just what the accountants want! ;-)

You can also use them to buy package holidays but each package holiday is subject to an individual quote but at least package flights would go direct from Bristol. 3,000 miles may not be enough to buy a package holiday for two I fear.

Is there nowhere you want to fly to in Europe from Heathrow where each flight is 1500 miles return that is not in any case served directly by anyone from Bristol? You can also redeem them for car hire worldwide but the conversion rate is very poor indeed compared to the flight value they would buy.

I am probably to going blow mine on a trip to South Africa or South America plus a couple of short haul European flights or perhaps a trip to the USA to see one of the last Space Shuttle flights plus two or three European flights.