Avios account closure

makemdano

A long time ago I used Tesco CC points to buy airmile, seemed the right way to go. Air Miles were changed/taken over by Avios and I acccrued over 40000 points which theoretically could give my wife and I 2 return trips to Europe.
My home airport is Newcastle and my preferred holiday destinations are Sardinia, Italian lakes and Corsica in that order. I can get cheap dels in 4 * hotels for Italian lakes locally, sardina was OK from Ledds Bradford but that flight is no longer n the Jet2 list.
No problem I thought, fly to London (BA only do Heathrow) get a flight to Algherro, Olbia or Cagliari. BA only fly to Cagliari and then only from Gatwick. Disabilities make that sort of journey more trouble than its worth.
Still no proble as Flybe go from Edinburgh to bastia (corsica). Yes! I can use Avios point for Flybe. Contacted Avios to be told that that flight isn't part of the Avios scheme

WHAT IS THE POINT?

I don't want to go to Spain or Portugal or Canaries and if I did I culd do so cheaper locally.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly I logged on to the Avios account to be greeted with a banner telling me my account would be closed at the end of the month unless collected points. I did this via Estores only to find out that it could take 35 days for the points to appear on my account.

Having checked the Ts&Cs the sub para in question distinctly describes the condition as "points earned" so I think their interpretation is incorrect and I've told them so.

All this is besides the point though. How is it right that an organisation can have over £700 (in buying terms) of my collateral on their books and just delete me without any kind of notification?
It just does not seem fair. Shouldn't they notify customers in good time so that we can take steps to resolve the problem?

Anyone else in the same boat?
Any suggestions on how to get to my preferred destinations using my points?

I know the MSE blog mentions the 3 year rule but I had air miles before MSE came into existance and never saw the need to look at this blog as there are things of much more relevance to my financial situation.

jpsartre

makemdano wrote: »

WHAT IS THE POINT?

I don't want to go to Spain or Portugal or Canaries and if I did I culd do so cheaper locally.

So because Avios partner airlines don't fly to where you want to go, the Avios scheme is pointless? Many of the Italian lakes are around Milan, BA flies there from LHR. Note that if you haven't earned any Avios recently (can't recall the exact timeframe) you will be asked to pay the full tax amount on your flight.

makemdano

jpsartre wrote: »

So because Avios partner airlines don't fly to where you want to go, the Avios scheme is pointless?

Not at all, I do want to go to Bastia and Flybe DO go there but Avios DON'T support that flight.

I had a rethink and decided to look further afield - Vancouver to be precise.
Do BA fly there from Heathrow YES!
Have they seats available for preferred dates YES!
On to Avis then NO! they say no available flights WHAT!

Contacted Avios who tell me thattheir allocation is taken up. WHAT!

So not only do we have the limitation of where you can fly from and to, thefurther limitation that even if the cariiers do fly the routes the route may still not be included in the scheme and an even further limitation that there are a limited number of seats per flight that you can pay for with points.

Again

POINTLESS!

which is where I'll be if/when they take my points away :rotfl:

Caz3121

RFS seats are available if miles earned in the previous 12 months
re expiry (from the BA website)
Your Avios stay with you as long as you collect, spend, purchase or share at least one Avios every 36 months — any longer and your Avios will expire and be removed, so remember to take action before those three years are up.
Your account will show you the last date you had activity
There are threads around how to keep your account live
I believe it is your responsibility to keep an eye on the expiry by logging into your account rather than expecting someone to write to remind you

Caz3121

makemdano wrote: »

I had a rethink and decided to look further afield - Vancouver to be precise.
Do BA fly there from Heathrow YES!
Have they seats available for preferred dates YES!
On to Avis then NO! they say no available flights WHAT!

Did you check redemption seats or just seats for sale?
to redeem miles for a seat it needs to be a redemption seat which you can check by checking on your BA account or using

http://www.baredemptionfinder.com/search?source=lon&destination=yvr&number_of_passengers=2&class=business
(As you still need to pay the taxes I assume you were looking at business class, there is very limited availability on that route, Long haul economy is very poor use of miles. Maybe head over to the BA board on Flyertalk there are some great threads there that can help you understand the program)

CM66

You can freely move your points between Avios and BA Executive club as they often have different availability on reward flights.....

makemdano

CM66 wrote: »

You can freely move your points between Avios and BA Executive club as they often have different availability on reward flights.....

Thanks for that, this may be a way of protecting my points before the end of the month, useful advice.

makemdano

Caz3121 wrote: »

Did you check redemption seats or just seats for sale?
to redeem miles for a seat it needs to be a redemption seat which you can check by checking on your BA account or using

http://www.baredemptionfinder.com/search?source=lon&destination=yvr&number_of_passengers=2&class=business
(As you still need to pay the taxes I assume you were looking at business class, there is very limited availability on that route, Long haul economy is very poor use of miles. Maybe head over to the BA board on Flyertalk there are some great threads there that can help you understand the program)

I just used a standard BA flight checker, wasn't aware of the redemption position, need to get up to speed with Avios.

Thanks for the "Flyertalk" advice, I'll head over there and have a look

callum9999

Caz3121 wrote: »

Did you check redemption seats or just seats for sale?
to redeem miles for a seat it needs to be a redemption seat which you can check by checking on your BA account or using

http://www.baredemptionfinder.com/search?source=lon&destination=yvr&number_of_passengers=2&class=business
(As you still need to pay the taxes I assume you were looking at business class, there is very limited availability on that route, Long haul economy is very poor use of miles. Maybe head over to the BA board on Flyertalk there are some great threads there that can help you understand the program)

I wouldn't make that assumption. They clearly have no idea how frequent flier schemes work, so I highly doubt they're aware of the high taxes and charges on long haul economy flights (though we will no doubt receive another message about how pointless avios are when they do find out!).

callum9999

makemdano wrote: »

Thanks for that, this may be a way of protecting my points before the end of the month, useful advice.

A rather risky way of doing it, as they can equally expire in the other scheme. If you have any Tesco points or money in a topcashback account, transfer some of them now. If not, you'll most likely either need to redeem them before the end of the month or if your estores purchase doesn't credit in time, buy some Avios directly from BA for an extortionate rate!

makemdano

[FONT=&quot]I appreciate that if I was a frequent or business traveller from one of the London airports then I would probably have kept tabs on the situation. I'm not and due to temporary disabilities it just hasn't been convenient for us to use anything other than local airports for holidays.

Although we are talking about points with a small nominal value, the intrinsic value is substantial. If I had such a valued amount in a bank account that I had not contributed to for 3 years I would expect the bank to at least contact me before closure, and even if they did close the account I would be able to reinstate this at some later date[/FONT]

I suppose my biggest BoC is that now that I have taken steps to keep my account live by buying from Estore, I could still lose everything if the relevant store does not credit my points in time. I've followed the "missing points" route on the advice of Avios CS to try and ensure they are applied on time but its the total inability on my part to be able to excercise some control over what is happening.