Amex rewards.... advice please!

Sunshine_and_Roses

I took out the Amex gold charge card a few months ago, and have 20, 000 extra points from spending £1000 in the first three months.

I have never used air miles as I usually shop around different airlines for cheapest flights, and book hotels separately. Are airmiles better value? Otherwise I believe I can get shopping vouchers or transfer to nectar points.

Any tips on getting the best value for my points would be great.

Thanks in advance.

reclusive46

The best way to get the most value out of them is airmiles. No point in the vouchers as you can redeem points as a credit for the same value. Look at for bonus miles on airmiles, British airways often has a 50% extra offer on.

w211

Yes, British Airways had a 40% extra Avios points offer earlier this year. It's often best to wait until another offer appears, unless you need to use the points sooner. Membership Rewards points will never expire as far as I know.

Also worthwhile to buy fuel at Shell and shop at Tesco (paying with your Amex), as you can collect Avios using their Driver's Club and Clubcard schemes, to build up your points quicker.

msallen

Avios are only considered good when redeeming either short haul (European) economy flights, or premium cabins (business class, first class) on long haul flights. They are not good for long haul economy flights because the fuel surcharge you have to pay means you will only save a small amount over what you buy a cheap ticket for elsewhere.

happycamel_2

You can use avios (used to be called airmiles) for other things. I use mine for hotel stays and car hire. We got two weeks effectively free hire in Florida earlier this year. Before we had kids we stayed at the Macdonald 5* spa hotel in Bath for free too. I've also spent them on a free hotel in Rome.

InsideInsurance

Look on the likes of Flyer Talk etc and you will find forums dedicated to Amex MR points and discussions on best value and promotions etc

As has been pointed out, Avios are good because of the Zone 1-3 offer where its points + thirty quid for flights including north africa, eastern europe etc with BA.

If you go further afield then points with any airline is typically better used to upgrade yourself (eg from Economy to Business) rather than actually get the flight with them.

If you arent interested in travel then tbh you are probably better with a different type of card

Any

I also have Airmiles/Avios. I used to love them and have looooads currently, but am struggling to spend them as all the flights are from London only. You can get free connection flight, but flight to Prague with connecting flight takes 7 hrs for example.

However if I lived closed to London I would keep raking them up as there is a lot of destinations to Europe - zone 1-3. I would be somewhere else every month!!

Also can be used for buying wine, days out, magazines, car hire... their Deals of the week sometimes offer great holidays, if you are flexible.

But saying that... if you are not interested in travel, not close to London or don't like abroad, then Nectar would probably be better.

You can spend Nectar points in Sainsbury's, Argos, for Amazon vouchers, with Jet2, in restaurants... quite a lot to offer.

InsideInsurance

Certainly if you can avoid UK long distance airport taxes then all points systems become better however it is not as simple as just going via Dublin, you'd either need to book it as a separate flight in which case there is no protection for your second flight if something goes wrong with the first one meaning you miss the second or you must be in dublin for 24 hrs