Boost Your Airmiles Discussion Area

NonGeographicalMan

GettingItRight wrote: »

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.

The Nationwide credit card still has 0% foreign exchange rate levy in EU +EEA (Switzerland, Iceland etc) countries for purchases but there is now a 1% levy elsewhere in the world. The change was on using the blue debit card for cash withdrawals from 1st November 2010 where they now charge a £1 fixed fee on each withdrawal and 2% foreign exchange rate levy. The only easy way to avoid that now is to open an account with the new Metro Bank. The Post Office credit card is still foreign exchange rate levy fee free on a worldwide basis.

RT7

steve1500 wrote: »

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

Can I ask which make/model they give you 50 airmiles for.

TIA

GettingItRight

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

The Nationwide credit card still has 0% foreign exchange rate levy in EU +EEA (Switzerland, Iceland etc) countries for purchases but there is now a 1% levy elsewhere in the world. The change was on using the blue debit card for cash withdrawals from 1st November 2010 where they now charge a £1 fixed fee on each withdrawal and 2% foreign exchange rate levy. The only easy way to avoid that now is to open an account with the new Metro Bank. The Post Office credit card is still foreign exchange rate levy fee free on a worldwide basis.

Actually, checking my previous statement again I was not charged for 2 purchases I made abroad. It was for a withdrawal I made whilst there.

NonGeographicalMan

GettingItRight wrote: »

Actually, checking my previous statement again I was not charged for 2 purchases I made abroad. It was for a withdrawal I made whilst there.

From www.nationwide.co.uk/creditcard/goldcard/foreigntransactions.htm

Foreign Transactions

Purchases and cash machine withdrawals

If you carry out a transaction using your card in a currency other than sterling, it will be converted to sterling on the day the transaction is processed by our card scheme providers at a wholesale rate of exchange, which may vary daily. For an indication of that exchange rate, you can see the Visa wholesale rate of exchange at www.visaeurope.com/fxcalculator. This is an "indication" because transactions are processed when the retailer passes them on to the scheme provider, which is generally not on the same day the transaction took place.

Third party charges

Nationwide continues to offer "commission-free" foreign transactions.
"Commission-free" means that we do not add any additional charges for exchanging currency which are designed to generate profit for the Society. We do, however, pass on any fee we incur from our card scheme providers for processing transactions in certain currencies (generally those outside of the European Economic Area and Turkey and Israel) other than sterling.

The fee is currently 1.00% and it will be included in the sterling amount shown on your statement.

The list below provides details of the countries for which a fee is charged. To check if you will be charged, please search for the country you are visiting by using the A-Z list. Unless stated otherwise a fee will be charged.

And then from www.nationwide.co.uk/creditcard/goldcard/foreigntransactions.htm

Will I be charged the fee for withdrawing cash from a cash machine?

Select the country you are visiting from the list below, if it is listed as "no fee charged" you will not be charged. Otherwise you will be charged the fee. Please remember if you use your credit card to withdraw cash you will be charged a cash advance fee.

If you check the list of countries as with spend on the card at retailers there is no foreign exchange rate levy fee of 1% charged for cash machine withdrawal on the credit card on machines in countries in the European Economic Area + Turkey and Israel.

Unfortunately there is however a 2.5% cash advance fee on all cash withdrawals on the Nationwide credit card anywhere worldwide that they fail to mention here. So it looks like I need to open an account with Metro Bank who do not charge overseas card machine withdrawal fees or foreign exchange rate levy on their debit and credit cards. The only snag is that an account can only be opened in person in one of their four London branches and they require photo ID (passport or driving licence) and a recent bank statement and a utility bill.

Despite the double Air Miles rate offered for overseas spend (one Air Mile for every £5 spent) on the Lloyds Amex card you would be very unwise to use it overseas because they charge the usual massive foreign exchange rate levy fees in the EU unlike Nationwide, the Post Office or Metro Bank on their credit cards.:mad:

Ecky-thump

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

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.

Thanks for the suggestion, but no, it will not be possible to travel to Heathrow. My other half is not keen to do it. He says there is a perfectly good airport just a short taxi ride away from us, and I tend to agree. Package Holidays? Oh no! Ugh! No way, not for us.

So there it is, my spare airmiles ... and they cannot be sold! Or can they? A certain website needs to be explored, methinks!

When I first had my Access card, as it was then called, I signed up for airmiles. As we were very poor at the time, with a young family, and only had a tent to go on camping holidays in the UK we never used the airmiles. The paper ones were converted and added to the total ages ago, and now they will not be needed, all of them.

There should be a way to convert them to money, by the airmiles company. Or maybe a concession on tickets to places of interest, like to areas under The National Trust. It could be for the one time conversion and would mean closing down all accounts with the airmiles company, as afterall, they are only interested in flights.

Maybe there are many folks out there with airmiles they no longer want and cannot use for various reasons. A way should be found for airmiles to be converted into something we can use - ordinary shopping for instance!?! But that is just my opinion, and it would suit me if it were possible. I hope you all find the holiday you want.

Meanwhile, I will continue to shop using the airmiles website and gain more airmiles, just in case there is a change in their polcy at sometime in the future. One can ony hope.

NonGeographicalMan

Ecky-thump wrote: »

There should be a way to convert them to money, by the airmiles company. Or maybe a concession on tickets to places of interest, like to areas under The National Trust. It could be for the one time conversion and would mean closing down all accounts with the airmiles company, as afterall, they are only interested in flights.:)

You can have Annual Adult Membership of English Heritage for 625 Air Miles if you go to Activities then Membership on the Air Miles website or Membership of the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust for 485 Air Mies or RHS Single Membership for 600 Air Miles or Joint RHS Membership for 900 Air Miles or you can get a dozen bottles of moderate but not great wine for 1,000 Air Miles. So an easy way to get rid of them would be to order in 3 dozen bottle cases of wine worth about £55 or so each n terms of what the wine would cost you at the supermarket. The wine will come direct to your front door somewhere near Bristol airport. No need to waste time or effort on travelling.

Some of their other sporting activities and flying activities etc will only have a more limited appeal. None of them are terribly good value as you are basically only getting around half the amount per Air Mile you might get by spending 1500 Air Miles on the best value European flight actually available for Air Miles but at least you would manage to use them up without being forced to fly from Heathrow or Gatwick.............

josie

Or another option would be to use your airmiles for a hotel stay. They're not too bad value on these - well I've used them for New York and they work out quite well.

JOHN1982

Can I just ask, are the journeys quoted on the BA Miles website return trips?

I've got a load of Tesco Clubcard vouchers that, if I convert, will work out to 30,000 BA Miles. Would that then get me two return tickets to Europe Zone 2 shown here;

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/ecredeemcalculator/public/en_gb

Thank you very much for your help in advance!

NonGeographicalMan

JOHN1982 wrote: »

I've got a load of Tesco Clubcard vouchers that, if I convert, will work out to 30,000 BA Miles. Would that then get me two return tickets to Europe Zone 2 shown here;

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/ecredeemcalculator/public/en_gb

Thank you very much for your help in advance!

Yes that is the return BA Miles price.for one return ticket to Zone Two destinations (One Air Mile = Ten BA Miles in terms of both the Tesco Clubcard Conversion rate and more generally).

However that value of Tesco Clubcard Vouchers (£150) will also get you 3,000 Air Miles instead of 30,000 BA Miles and the return price to Europe Zone 2 (the same zone as the BA one for 15,000 BA Miles return) on Air Miles is 1500 Air Miles. But the big difference is that the total price on Air Miles is just the 1500 Air Miles per ticket but on BA Miles you have to pay taxes and airport charges and these may be up to £35 or so per ticket on Europe short haul. This compares with the cheapest Ryanair or Easyjet cash fares with a hold bag and card charges and all other fees being around £70 per ticket. So Air Miles are normally a much better deal conversion wise for Europe short haul than BA Miles as they include the taxes and charges and BA Miles do not. Their only disadvantage is you have to travel out to and return from the same airport (with BA Miles you can have two one way fares) and availability may not be as good as BA Miles on some routes.

You need to remember that £150 of Tesco Clubcard vouchers is worth 3 times that (£450) on their Tesco Clubcard deal promotions including things like ferry travel with your car and family to either France or Ireland and complete long haul holidays with Virgin Holidays and meals out at a whole lot of Restaurant chains they have deals with (eg Cafe Rouge, Strada, Chez Gerard, Pizza Express etc). Or they are worth £150 of food in a Tesco store.

So unless you are converting to BA Miles because you have lots of other BA Miles already and want to use them to travel Club long haul to the USA, South America, Far East etc (Club Class is a much better deal with BA Miles than Air Miles) I would question the wisdom of converting them to BA Miles as you are going to pay another £70 or taxes or so for the two tickets with BA Miles and no taxes with Air Miles. Or the Tesco Clubcard 3 for one conversion would be better value if you eat out a lot at the restaurants they have a deal with or if you travel by ferry or take inclusive holidays with people like Virgin.

See https://www.tesco.com/clubcard/deals for more information on what else you can spend your Tesco Clubcard vouchers on using the £1 = £3 promotion deals.

JOHN1982

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

Yes that is the return BA Miles price.for one return ticket to Zone Two destinations (One Air Mile = Ten BA Miles in terms of both the Tesco Clubcard Conversion rate and more generally)...

Wow, what a great post NGM. Thank you very much. :T

We were originally saving the vouchers for a Virgin Holiday, but found a better deal without them. We had a look through all the 3 for 1 deals but couldn't really find anything we fancied and can't really afford another 7 day Virgin Holiday within this year. Thus we were considering a long weekend somewhere in Zone 2. The info on the BA Miles / Airmiles is great. Lots of thinking to do I guess!