Avios Points Boosting guide discussion

ernie-money

I'm a little confused... I had signed up for a Shell card, got my 50 bonus points for registering online, filled up with about 45 litre, to be sure to definitely get over the 160 points threshold, with the additional points for collecting Avios, but as I still could not see them in my account, I rang the drivers club and queried this. I was then advised that the 25 Avios come directly from Avios, and not from Shell, and that they aren't awarded until after the end of the next quarter - I think he said in October, so it is now way too late for me to fill up with another 60 plus litres before the cut off date.
Wish I'd known that a little earlier...

crazyjamie

ernie-money wrote: »

I'm a little confused... I had signed up for a Shell card, got my 50 bonus points for registering online, filled up with about 45 litre, to be sure to definitely get over the 160 points threshold, with the additional points for collecting Avios, but as I still could not see them in my account, I rang the drivers club and queried this. I was then advised that the 25 Avios come directly from Avios, and not from Shell, and that they aren't awarded until after the end of the next quarter - I think he said in October, so it is now way too late for me to fill up with another 60 plus litres before the cut off date.
Wish I'd known that a little earlier...

Not sure this is right. I picked up a new Drivers Club card last week, didn't buy any fuel as my tank was full.

I registered online and selected to collect via BA Exec Club.

Two days later I got credited with 50 Shell points.

Yesterday I got credited with ANOTHER 50 Shell points.

I'm presuming the first 50 was the "online registration" bonus and the second 50 was the "register for Avios" bonus.

I still haven't bought any fuel (!) and I'm now at 100 points.

ernie-money

crazyjamie wrote: »

Not sure this is right. I picked up a new Drivers Club card last week, didn't buy any fuel as my tank was full.

I registered online and selected to collect via BA Exec Club.

Two days later I got credited with 50 Shell points.

Yesterday I got credited with ANOTHER 50 Shell points.

I'm presuming the first 50 was the "online registration" bonus and the second 50 was the "register for Avios" bonus.

I still haven't bought any fuel (!) and I'm now at 100 points.

That's odd! I've still only got the 50 points, plus my spend on fuel. On the other hand though, I've now got 50 Avios in my Avios account - shell drivers club welcome bonus!
I'm not sure how this will work for the 2000 bonus miles though, because the terms said that you have to earn 75 Avios to qualify for the bonus & now I've had 50 in the first quarter, and the Shell points I've earned wont be credited until the end of next quarter, but as I've had the 50 bonus Avios already, I'm not sure if Shell will qualify as a new partner anymore...
I'm a bit confused with the whole promotion! Hopefully I'll get something out of it at some point anyway!

JOHN1982

Hi all, just hoping for a bit of Avios advice here!

I've got 14,000 miles in my BAEC account from a couple of LHR-EWR trips I've taken, and I've got £200 in Tesco Clubcard Points.

I was hoping to fly to LA with my OH June next year (and onward). It looks like it would cost 50,000 points and £480 for 2 singles. I was going to buy these outright with clubcard points but have seen through the guide it's better to do it quarterly and get the bonus points.

Is this a good idea or a waste of money / points? It would cost £1200 for the flights using cash alone.

Sorry if this is a real obvious question, I just find it all hugely confusing!

Thanks in advance!

budgetflyer

You will still have to buy 2 single tickets to get back to UK so to me,its a complete waste of 50000 avios if you can buy 2 rtns without Avios for £1200.
+ you will get 11000 avios for each paid for flight

becominganobsessivesaver

JOHN1982 wrote: »

Hi all, just hoping for a bit of Avios advice here!

I've got 14,000 miles in my BAEC account from a couple of LHR-EWR trips I've taken, and I've got £200 in Tesco Clubcard Points.

I was hoping to fly to LA with my OH June next year (and onward). It looks like it would cost 50,000 points and £480 for 2 singles. I was going to buy these outright with clubcard points but have seen through the guide it's better to do it quarterly and get the bonus points.

Is this a good idea or a waste of money / points? It would cost £1200 for the flights using cash alone.

Sorry if this is a real obvious question, I just find it all hugely confusing!

Thanks in advance!

Your best bet would be to see if there is availability to upgrade to Club. You could then buy a world traveller plus flight (premium economy) and use your miles to upgrade (12,500 per person each way). I suppose it depends whether you can justify spending about £1,200 per flight. You would also earn avios back for your flight.

If not I would just save the avios for Europe flights, which start at 9,000 avios each plus £27, or splash out on a nice weekend somewhere in club europe from 18,000 plus £34 (you get access to T5 lounges etc with this)

JOHN1982

Thanks a lot for your help there! I'm going to be booking the flights regardless (it doesn't hinge on using the points) so I guess the decision is really whether I can afford the difference between World Traveller and World Traveller Plus.

Another question (sorry, I'm new to all this!), if we book this all through a travel agent, is it something they can do, or would I have to request the flight details and then book that myself separately?

budgetflyer

just book it on BA.com
log into your exec acc. + from the LH menu choose "book with cash and upgrade with Avios"

becominganobsessivesaver

JOHN1982 wrote: »

Thanks a lot for your help there! I'm going to be booking the flights regardless (it doesn't hinge on using the points) so I guess the decision is really whether I can afford the difference between World Traveller and World Traveller Plus.

Another question (sorry, I'm new to all this!), if we book this all through a travel agent, is it something they can do, or would I have to request the flight details and then book that myself separately?

Unfortunately you can't upgrade travel agent bookings, so don't go there!!! As said above you need to log onto your account and search using the book and upgrade function (click WTP as your class and this will then search for CW). Probably advisable to start looking 355 days from your preferred earliest return date to establish if there's availability (it can get snapped up pretty quickly) and if there isn't then maybe just hold out for a sale (I imagine you may get a sale fare if travelling outside of school hols), pay cash for economy and boost your avios a bit more.

Have a read of flyertalk's BA forum to find out a bit more about travelling club and then you can establish if you can afford the extra whether it is worth it to you. I've tried it on two long haul holidays and found the flight much more relaxing, with the bonus of lounge access. Unfortunately on my last flight I couldn't take advantage of the free champagne as I realised I was pregnant when I was sat in the lounge before my flight!:eek:

crumhorn

Apologies if I'm posting in the wrong place, but totally new to this.


BACKGROUND:

Wife used Tesco points to buy AVIOS with the extra advantage in March 2012. These were then credited to her AVIOS account. As we wanted to use them with our BAEC account, these were then combined to that account (April 2012). These 2480 AVIOS showed on my account as part of the household account.

PROBLEM:

In May 2012 BAEC expired the AVIOS. My wife contact AVIOS, but they said it was BAEC that had made them expire.

My wife wrote to BAEC, and they replied that as no transaction had taken place within 3 years that these had been expired, but as a gesture of goodwill would reinstate, but that they had to be used within the next 2 months.

I constructed a reply on behalf of my wife saying how could they have expired, they were only purchased in March 2012. I then asked did they mean her BAEC account hadn't been used, but I still cannot understand if that is the case as AVIOS only came out last year, so how could any AVIOS have expired.

I am extremely concerned as I have in excess of 45,000 AVIOS which were converted from BA miles, and had been saving them up to get a transatlantic flight.

Anyone know the answer or experienced the same?

I am still awaiting an answer from BAEC.