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

leadhead

leadhead wrote: »

Yes, where has the rep gone.....Can anyone see what zone Madeira or the Canary Isles are in....I cant find any reference to them..

Of course, she was an Airmiles Rep, not an Avios one, maybe her fate was sealed.......

Anyone know which zone, Canaries or Madeira is in...

richardw

leadhead wrote: »

Can anyone see what zone Madeira or the Canary Isles are in....I cant find any reference to them..

There are no direct BA/Iberia flights from the UK to Madeira or the Canary Islands.

Just looked up Tenerife South on BA and they are quoting 30,000 avios and £54 reward saver for a return flight via Madrid from London Heathrow.

TAP Air Portugal's London - Madeira direct flights were sometimes available with https://www.airmiles.co.uk , perhaps call them before the 16th December deadline, if you are interested to see if there might still be some availability.

hethmar

Can anyone advise please. I have found a bundle of about 4000 old paper air miles in a drawer, can I swop these for avios miles now?

Roger1

Officially no. The deadline has passed.

However, you could give them a ring or e-mail them. You never know. They may take pity and offer to take them. I'm sure you're not the only one with the problem.

ha-melmahey

Funny, I had been lead to believe that Avios would benefit more regional flights over Airmiles. Though quickly found out that it's actually so much worse for those wanting to travel from Northern Ireland (and possibly Scotland)

We're not even included on the Zone Map! Which means lots of wasted time tediously having to go through their search page randomly to see if you can fly to anywhere... in the UK or further afield.

When contacting their customer advisors whether through their: email, online site chat, Facebook page or Facebook community page (which you have to give up information to be used as they see fit by their marketing) They don't seem to be allowed to give you a standard but definitive list of airports we can fly to from Belfast. Possibly because the rumours I've heard that they're trying to make it difficult for anyone not from England to use their Avios points to fly, as they're to phase that option for those type of customers (by oct 2012). This is apparently because the new owners BA have to make deals with Flybe/Aerlingus as they don't fly from all airports.

We also DON'T get the £27 cap on European bookings even if we've collected miles in the previous 12 months.

So how come Airmiles/Avios customers weren't told any of this in advance of the changes - either by Avios or Money Expert?

richardw

If the Bmi deal goes through you'll probably be able to spend avios on flights to Heathrow.

vinylmusic

If I'd known that airmiles were going to become avios I would never have used my tesco points to save them
Is there any way of getting my avios converted back to tesco points?
I could use thos points much better elsewhere

jackieblack

vinylmusic wrote: »

If I'd known that airmiles were going to become avios I would never have used my tesco points to save them
Is there any way of getting my avios converted back to tesco points?
I could use thos points much better elsewhere

This is a view shared by many others - the answer, unfortunately, appears to be no.

vinylmusic

I didn't think so but I'll have a good moan at them anyway
Perhaps if we all did they may take notice.
Who's with me on that?

KTM_Gordo

ha-melmahey wrote: »

This is apparently because the new owners BA have to make deals with Flybe/Aerlingus as they don't fly from all airports.

Airmiles (Avios) is owned by BA, so there's no change in ownership. The main problem is that BA doesn't fly to Northern Ireland any more, so that's always going to be a problem when it's essentially a BA loyalty scheme.

Not entirely sure what all the fuss is about as the new arrangements seem fairer than before, and for short-haul the fees are fixed at a reasonably low sum. If you use other loyalty schemes for 'free' flights you have to pay all the fees and charges in full.