Avios Points Boosting guide discussion

Fletchasketch

You would need 2 credit cards in that case. You can check the points by making a dummy booking at britishairways.co.uk but the availability is quite poor, unless you book very far ahead. Might be better with VA.

PeacefulWaters

Availability is always going to be an issue with Avios.

And with PE cabins not giving any guaranteed availability it becomes even tougher.

bigdunc99

I have the standard BA Amex card and notice that it requires £20,000pa spend to qualify for the companion voucher but only £10,000pa with the premium card which comes with a £195pa fee. My intention is to save points over a couple of years to get enough for a long haul business class flight. Does anyone know if I can switch to the premium card in, say, year 3, use the £10k spend that year to get the companion voucher and use all the miles I've collected up to that point to get the two flights? Would the points collected in the previous two years still be eligible to count towards the two flights?

Nick_C

You can upgrade from the standard to the premium BA Amex card at any time. For example, if you are 10 months into your collection year and have spent £10K, you can upgrade to the premium card and immediately get the two for one voucher. You can also cancel the premium card at any time and get a pro rata refund.

The two for one voucher that you get with the premium card is valid for two years, so is much easier to use (the voucher from the free card is only valid for a year). If you are planning to fly on a particular date, it is best to book the flight as soon as it becomes available, 355 days in advance. Book the outbound flight only. Once the return flight becomes available, phone up to amend your booking and add the return. You may be charged a £35 admin fee for this, although the call centre should waive the fee as this is something you cannot do online.

You can collect Avios from lots of different partners and keep them all towards your future flight. You can collect Avios with BAEC, Avios, and Iberia, and move them from one account to another.

As an addition to the free BA card, I would suggest the Lloyds Amex Avios card. This costs £24 a year, but earns 1.25 avios per £1. For the first six months, this is doubled to 2.5 avios per £1. There is also no foreign exchange fee with this card, so it's a great card to get if you are having a holiday abroad in the next six months.

For more ways to earn, consider using BA Gate 365 or the Avios store instead of Quidco and Top Cashback.

And finally, spend some time looking at http://www.headforpoints.com/top-posts/ which has some very good guides which explain how to maximise you and spend your Avios.

Fletchasketch

bigdunc99 wrote: »

I have the standard BA Amex card and notice that it requires £20,000pa spend to qualify for the companion voucher but only £10,000pa with the premium card which comes with a £195pa fee. My intention is to save points over a couple of years to get enough for a long haul business class flight. Does anyone know if I can switch to the premium card in, say, year 3, use the £10k spend that year to get the companion voucher and use all the miles I've collected up to that point to get the two flights? Would the points collected in the previous two years still be eligible to count towards the two flights?

Yes you can and yes you would. Bear in mind that there are better cards for avios earning. The Avios gold, for example.

Nick_C

Fletchasketch wrote: »

Bear in mind that there are better cards for avios earning. The Avios gold, for example.

Huh?

Do you mean the Amex Preferred Rewards Gold Card?

If so;

Its a charge card, not a credit card, so no S75 protection

The earnings rate is 1 Avios to the £1, so less than the BAPP and no better than the free BA card.

You don't get a two for one flight voucher.

However, it does come with a 20,000 point/avios sign up bonus if you spend £2000 in the first three months.

http://www.headforpoints.com/2016/10/26/amex-american-express-preferred-rewards-gold-charge-card-uk-review-2/

PeacefulWaters

For more ways to earn, consider using BA Gate 365 or the Avios store instead of Quidco and Top Cashback.

Although you can redeem TCB earnings for Avios and the rate of earnings is usually higher.

Fletchasketch

Nick_C wrote: »

Huh?

Do you mean the Amex Preferred Rewards Gold Card?

If so;

Its a charge card, not a credit card, so no S75 protection

The earnings rate is 1 Avios to the £1, so less than the BAPP and no better than the free BA card.

You don't get a two for one flight voucher.

However, it does come with a 20,000 point/avios sign up bonus if you spend £2000 in the first three months.

http://www.headforpoints.com/2016/10/26/amex-american-express-preferred-rewards-gold-charge-card-uk-review-2/

Yes, that's the card. It's exactly the 20'000 bonus points which makes it better value than the BAPP. Obviously it depends on what you want to spend your points on, but paying £195 for a card purely for the upgrade voucher when availability in business is so hit and miss, doesn't make sense to me.

Nick_C

The BAPP comes with an 18K bonus, although you won't get this if you are upgrading from the free BA card.

You can of course have the gold charge card and the BAPP.

My OH and I will be flying to LA and back this summer in CW. The BAPP is allowing us to do this for 125000 Avios instead of 250000 Avios. The Avios saving is worth about £800 in my estimation. And I've earned about 8000 extra avios with the BAPP card compared with the free card. Well worth £195 in my case.

Fletchasketch

Congratulations, hope you have a lovely time. I don't think there's a one size fits all for credit cards, personally I wouldn't want to take the risk of their not being availability, but if it works for you then great stuff.