MSE News: Costs to soar in Airmiles revamp: use points before they devalue

veryintrigued

Hi there

We have been collecting and using airmiles for the last few years. We've been collecting via Tescos and Lloyds. However like many people we're spoken to we'll not be collecting after this revamp.

We understand the Airmiles model has to change but paying for flights no longer makes it viable for us.

Hence we are trying to use our remaining miles to book flights to Budapest for late Oct 2012. The drop down for October 2012 is not available yet. Can anyone advise when they will become available please?

Regards

Doc_N

vinylmusic wrote: »

I think that many moneysavers would appreciate it if Airmiles would stop advertising 0844 numbers.

I for one pay the phone company extra each month to cover me for anytime calls. I find it unfair that I must pay 5p a minute extra to talk to Airmiles whom I believe get a rake off from that cost.

Airmiles do indeed get a rake-off from these expensive 0844 calls.

OK, we can get round it with sayno, but the numbers companies use for customer contact are a pretty good guide to their attitude towards those customers. If they use numbers like 0844 to make a profit out of their customers, you've already got a good idea of their attitude towards you.

Goes hand in hand, really, with the devaluation of customers' Airmiles. Not a good company from a consumer's viewpoint.

Any

veryintrigued wrote: »

Hi there

We have been collecting and using airmiles for the last few years. We've been collecting via Tescos and Lloyds. However like many people we're spoken to we'll not be collecting after this revamp.

We understand the Airmiles model has to change but paying for flights no longer makes it viable for us.

Hence we are trying to use our remaining miles to book flights to Budapest for late Oct 2012. The drop down for October 2012 is not available yet. Can anyone advise when they will become available please?

Regards

They should usually be released 11 mths before hand I heard on the net... so they should be available pretty soon.
Or give them a ring, they are pretty good on the phone.

loates123

I would not hold your breath finding flights for the end of october 2012 I have rang air miles five times and spend a few hours every night looking on there web site yet to find one flight in any month to cuba and for next year end of july till end of september cant find any flights to florida or any places I want to go or even places like palma to make the matter worse I was told a few years ago I could use miles for package holidays 1000 miles is worth 70 pounds so looked at all the sites to a trip to turkey checked cosmos and thomas cook anyway the holiday I want was 1100 with travel republic with the other two sites they are 1800 so right away alarm bells ringing so rang air miles to tell them of course no luck and they would not price match they also told me 1000 points is now worth 50 quid this made me feel a little ripped off because air miles hav never informed me about this change. So tonight I will spend another night looking or hoping they have released more flights :-(

jackieblack

If it helps anyone I was told when I booked that there was 'pretty good' availability to/from New York (Newark) leaving end July 2012, for 2 weeks.

That was 2 weeks ago though (although I did post it at the time)

loates123

flights booked at last

tampa in july

fights on the british airways site are £900 each

loates123

Just a quick one if anyone can advice me that would be great . I am flying to tampa from gatwick and was going to use the rest of my air miles to get flights from manchester to gatwick , again flying with british air ways but air miles are saying if there is a delay or out with the manchester flight it will be my own fault and they said. To me I would be better off driving down to gatwick the night before I am just wondering if they are in there rights to say this as I find this poor when the flight to gatwick is also with british air ways.

jackieblack

loates123 wrote: »

Just a quick one if anyone can advice me that would be great . I am flying to tampa from gatwick and was going to use the rest of my air miles to get flights from manchester again which british air ways but air miles are saying if there is a delay or out with the manchester flight it will be my own fault and said I would be better driving down to gatwick the night before I am just wondering if they are in there rights to say this as I fine this poor when the flight to gatwick is also with british air ways.

Yes, unless they're booked through on the same ticket, if you have separately ticketed flights and the flight Gatwick arrives late you'll have a problem.
Could you use your remaining Airmiles to pay for/towards a hotel at Gatwick the night before?

loates123

jackieblack wrote: »

Yes, unless they're booked through on the same ticket, if you have separately ticketed flights and the flight Gatwick arrives late you'll have a problem.
Could you use your remaining Airmiles to pay for/towards a hotel at Gatwick the night before?

ok thanks I wanted to book from manchester via gatwick but air miles would not let me which I found strange when flights are available dont really want to use the rest of my miles for hotels as I find them poor value and wont beable to arrive till midnight due to work

scrub

Could anybody help? Just through business travel, I've collected 15,835 points but I've never actually used airmiles before. I'd like to go to Stockholm but it's telling me 15,000 +£77 surcharge. I thought paying for taxes hadn't come in yet? If I book normally it's only £121.00 including the £77 surcharge. I don't want to waste them but I'm only saving £50 for a trip I was only going to make to use the points up.

Any advice?