Buying BA miles

ritchieS

Hi,

I have searched the forum but can't find any information on buying BA miles and whether people think it's worth it or not.

They have an offer of 25% extra free at the moment.

Shaun

lawrenson

Hi,

its not easy to find reward flights at the moment.

Lots of miles about = not much availability.

Especially to/from the USA.

Cheers,
karen

Dave_Z

I take it you got that email today as well? I looked at it as me and my OH are flying to Prague on BA next week. Even with the 25% extra i didn't think the price was great. Not considering the amount of miles you need to get anything with BA. On Emirates, i earned enough miles on a single flight to Kuala Lumpur to upgrade to business class on a London-Dubai flight.

withabix

Personally I wouldn't buy BA Miles for cash unless I desperately needed a few to top up for a redemption.

In the last 12 months I have accrued 200,000 without trying and have done similar amounts every year for the last 4 years. If I really tried, I could get 500,000 a year.

True, I don't get them by flying any more, although I used to get ALL of them by flying and in 2005/6 I took fifty paid-for flights with BA, for example.

How many BA Miles do you need to get?

There is a simple way of getting 20,000 BA Miles in about 6-8 weeks for £39.95 and another 10,000 for nothing, although the latter willl take you a few months.

This involves Quidco and the initial outlays are £95 and £4.95 and you need to be creditworthy.


BA redemption availability is poor at the moment and far worse than I remember it being in any year since 2007 - although I don't think it is caused so much by the amount of Miles slushing about (there are far less than there were - my opinion as a 'collector') - the prime cause on routes where there is normally good availabiliy is THE STRIKE. The booking system 'thinks' that paid passenger loadings are high (due to re-bookings) and hence the redemptions disappear until BA manually over-ride the booking system.

It also takes previous year's bookings into account - for example there were NO redemption flights available to Vancouver in February 2011 until a few weeks ago....caused by this year's Winter Olympics!! This required manual intervention. The same will happen next June to Johannesburg...

On popular redemption routes with few daily flights and a low number of redemption seats to start with (such as Australia, Vancouver, Hong Kong etc), available redemption seats get taken upto 12 months in advance.

BA Miles are not a good way of buying short haul or Economy tickets. Best for a Club or First blow-out on a long haul trip.

dmg24

lawrenson wrote: »

Hi,

its not easy to find reward flights at the moment.

Lots of miles about = not much availability.

Especially to/from the USA.

Cheers,
karen

You might want to check your info before posting - a quick search shows lots of availability on transatlantic routes from September onwards, and even some dates left for the summer period.

malkie76

Buying miles is great if you are a few miles short of a major redemption, however under normal circumstances there aremuch better (cheaper) ways to top up your mileage - it just typically takes a couple of weeks for the miles to post.

for example there is currently a 18k bonus for signing up for the BA Amex.

lawrenson

dmg24 wrote: »

You might want to check your info before posting - a quick search shows lots of availability on transatlantic routes from September onwards, and even some dates left for the summer period.

Hi,

funny, as its some cause of discussion on the Flyertalk forums how little redemption there is across the Atlantic, apparently mainly caused by a 100,000 BA miles give-away by an American Credit card.

My own experience of trying to book a redemption to Chicago is that there is none.

I have flexible dates, and been checking regularly, and there have been none for 2 months.

Cheers,
Karen

malkie76

Maybe you are doing something wrong ? I've just gone online right now and found plenty of availability direct to Chicago in the future ???? It's essentially wide open if you plan ahead.

If you are desperate to go in the next few weeks then consider flying into a different US airport and using BA Miles on an AA flight to transfer to Chicacgo.

edit

I've checked various cabins too, and found availability in all

Rosie75

I'm trying to use Tesco clubcard reward vouchers to buy BA airmiles, and keep getting an error message at checkout. Does anyone else have this problem?

Ashley3283

Do you need to pay taxes on BA Miles flights?

Thanks

Dave_Z

Ashley3283 wrote: »

Do you need to pay taxes on BA Miles flights?

Thanks

Yes. My parents use them all the time, but can still end up paying a couple hundred quid on certain flights.