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MrsGrey

laney365 wrote: »

Hope this is in the right place. Just received notice that Airmiles credit card are parting company with Nat West. They have both sent me details of their new offers but the information is incomplete, unless I don't understand very well on a Saturday morning!
Nat West are starting their own points scheme with E-Bookers but you cannot combine this this Nectar or Airmiles points. Existing accounts will be automatically transferred to this.
Airmiles have linked with Lloyds TSB and are offering 2 cards, AMEX and Mastercard. I don't understand, why would I want 2 cards?

You have grasped it OK! See the 2 posts before yours, and the one after, for more details.
Basically Natwest have ditched Airmiles. They are the ones who run your account, so they can transfer automatically to whoever they want-- eBookers in this case. There must be a benefit to them to offer 2 cards. To us, it means that if you lose one, or whatever, presumably you can use the other? It seems it is advisable to check with them whether you may be charged a £3 monthly fee for their new eBookers card, if you don't spend £1,000 per month. There are different stories. See previous posts.
Perhaps this needs to be part of an article :money: -- it must affect a lot of people.

laney365

An article would be good. I think I'll wait for more information, but I'm tempted to ditch Nat West immediately, get the 500 free miles and then swap to a Tesco card as that's where I get most of my miles anyway.

I have a feeling that two cards are offered as the Amex isn't accepted everywhere so you can use the Mastercard instead, (which isn't so generous). I wish they would give all the information!

MrsGrey

There's a piece in Guardian Money today that seems pretty inaccurate as far as I can tell. But the detail is hard to establish.
Re Tesco credit card, that is an idea, certainly-- it's where I get most of my Airmiles too. When shopping in Tesco, I use my Clubcard Plus account debit card. That way I get the Clubcard points, and then the same number again, for using the Plus account. Thus you get 2 points for every pound spent, which I believe converts into £3 for each Airmile, if you have the old preferential rate of 80 miles for 250 points--Good!
I have a headache from this advanced maths.:rolleyes:

MrsGrey

Actually the Guardian article has a useful piece of info -- the concersion rate of the NatWest Your Points into actual travel, as compared with Airmiles. They say:
How does it work?
Customers will earn one point for every £1 of qualifying spending (under Airmiles, people receive one mile for every £20 spent). NatWest says it means people will be able to travel further for less. A return British Airways or Air France flight to Paris would cost 400 Airmiles, equating to £8,000 spent on your NatWest card, plus taxes of around £60. Under the new scheme, the same journey on easyJet would cost 4,300 YourPoints, equating to a £4,300 credit card spend, plus around £40 in taxes.
That's on the basis of the old rate of £20 per Airmile. While they give 1 mile for £10, the difference is wiped out, but that is only until May 08 ( small print!)YourPoints looks attractive, and more flexible than the Airmiles?

MrsGrey

Guardian article:
http://money.guardian.co.uk/saving/banks/story/0,,2067043,00.html

mcgsp

I must be missing something. When Laney365 mentions ditching Natwest and getting 500 free Airmiles I'm wondering where do the 500 free Airmiles come from?

I started with a standard Natwest card which was upgraded to a Natwest Gold card. We have spent a lot on it over more than 15 years but my letter does say I'll have to pay £3 a month to join the new scheme.

Did see some articles quoting the trip to Paris costing much less with Your Points than with Airmiles. What I would like to know is how the calculation is performed. How does a spend of £4300 result in a trip to Paris plus £40 taxes?

MrsGrey

The terms are confusing that's for sure. here are some answers:
When Laney365 mentions ditching Natwest and getting 500 free Airmiles I'm wondering where do the 500 free Airmiles come from?
Answer: they come as a "joining bonus" if you sign up for the Lloyds/Amex card, with Airmiles. You have to use the Amex card sepcifically, min £10 spend. In my experience, lots of places don't use Am,ex, so to sontinue to use that card and get the ( 1 year introductory 1 mile for £10 spend) could be tricky.
I started with a standard Natwest card which was upgraded to a Natwest Gold card. We have spent a lot on it over more than 15 years but my letter does say I'll have to pay £3 a month to join the new scheme.
Natwest are not publicising the criteria they are using for imposing the £3 p.m. charge. Sounds like you should not be charged and I should-- I have hardly ever spent on my regular (not Gold) NatWest card. Some weird commercial reason, no doubt.
What I would like to know is how the calculation is performed. How does a spend of £4300 result in a trip to Paris plus £40 taxes?
The way I understand it is this. (But I am an amateur...
The conversion is £1 spend= 1 YourPoint. What we don't know is the axact conversion rate of YourPoints into pounds. We are never told that part -- not with AirMiles either; we are in the world of alternative currency, and the conversion to real currency is kept by Airmiles, or eBookers. It may not be stable or consistemt, depending on the carrier, I suspect. Thus the only way of assessing the relative value of Airmiles and YourPoints, is to see how much money you have to spend on the card to get to the same destination.
So, to compare like with like at the standard Airmiles conversion rate of £20 spend=1Airmile, to get to Paris, you have to spend £8k + and with YourPoints you spend £4k+ . Airmiles always charge cash for taxes, but with Yourpoints you can pay with points. So those would be added on to the total. Of course, for destinations that are NOT covered by a low-cost airline, YourPoints may not be so powerful cf Airmiles.
I hope that clears the fog a little, unless I have misunderstood you -- always a probability!;)

MrsGrey

I'm not very experiemced at this site, but I'm thinking this discussion should really be on the Credit Card Rewards forum. I might post a link there for anyone else looking up this issue.

MrsGrey

The topic is being discussed in multiple threads. See this:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=218670
which is following up on Martin's post of last year about the lead-up to this.

mcgsp

Thanks for pointing out the link to the other thread. It would be useful if someone could combine them into a single thread especially now that Natwest and Airmiles are parting company.

I may phone Natwest re the proposed charge. I did actually use a lot of Airmiles (for a long haul flight as they were poor value for short haul flights where low cost carriers offer better value) recently after going for years without using them. Natwest may think we don't value their "rewards".