The Daily Mail reports on air mile redemption woes

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• phreegreens says:

  9 Jun9 June 08:06

  Sorenson reckons, FB is “the best programme out there” and his company designs FF programmes, call me an old 55+ cynic who doesn’t have much problem redeeming miles, but I wonder which company designed FB? I ended up with a pile of FB a few years ago, the result of a weekly (sometimes twice) weekly run to EIN and then a bit of KLM long haul as a result of being in the Netherlands. I used some of the miles for a weekend break and the rest just died, which I do agree was shameful.

• Trickster says:

  9 Jun9 June 09:57

  With regard to the taxes question, maybe the other 60% have adjusted their perspective on points, as I have. As long as you redeem in higher classes, I now see the points as not getting a free flight (you will be disappointed if you go into it thinking like that), but rather I see them as getting a free(ish) upgrade.

• Mr Bridge says:

  9 Jun9 June 10:32

  Firstly, the daily mail is just about good enough to eat fish and chips out of!!!

  I think that the survey was general on all airline mile. I ve just got into maximising avios, Which is what you have to do. Many people have credit cards cause they are loyal to their bank, or the shop with amazon online, or buy wine from laithwaits. What i did was switch 90% of my shopping to tesco ( i maximise the price promise too). I buy dvd cd from T direct, getting cash back and bonus cc, rather than amazon now (but still checkout the prices). My wine comes from tesco, and its not a bad bit of plonk.
  Just got a bmi in time, but which id been quick and got my partner one too.

  In 6 months i have earnt 275,00 avios and 1 companion voucher, partly due to switching out of bad reward schemes (hsbc plat points/ nectar), and combing all reward programmes into avios.and partly due to HFP..thanks raffles.

  I do note that some airmiles schemes are a bit poo, Thai for example. my partner and I had a couple of bus class flights and earnt 74000 miles between us, almost impossible to get any thing in return, you cant have a family acc, so can only redeem indvidual, we are going to hkg 3 nights, booked the lanham at a redemption of 24000, but as we could not combine , we only got 2 free nights , so now there is 12000 miles in each of our accounts we cant use before they expire…poo.

  Just booked for next may with comp vouch to orlando in club, took raffles tips to book flights either same day or few days apart and change day for £25pp, it worked, but required log in 4 -5 times per day, i was amazed at how quick availabilty changed, you need the time to keep doing this until the flights you want, thanks R.
  .

• Mr Bridge says:

  9 Jun9 June 10:40

  ps
  my redemption of 100,000 avios and 1 ba comp vouch and £1014 in taxes +£50 date change, i compared to a fare on ba.com of £5283.82 ( on the shareholder site) valuing my avios at about 4p each. or 2 p if you count voucher as 100,000.

• Howard says:

  9 Jun9 June 12:38

  Thanks to Raffles and this great website I have booked for Vegas return first class with BA Amex Companion Voucher. Cost about £1200 for both of us return. Tickets are about £17,000. To me thats value.

  Raffles – Keep up the great work!!

  • Mr Bridge says:

    9 Jun9 June 12:54

    the 1st to vegas is possibly the best use of the voucher and avios, its going to be my next trip..

    does anyone no about the int driving licence law that cam into effect for usa in jan 2013.
    The esta what a rip off when you still have to wait 3 hours to get into the dam country

    • Farringdon says:

      9 Jun9 June 20:58

      The Intl Drivers License law was just Florida, wasn’t it? And they backed down very quickly and repealed the law.

  • Michael says:

    9 Jun9 June 13:16

    Howard

    I’m booked up for exactly same trip in August. The 11.5 hour fight will be so much sweeter in First – as will Singapore in Feb.
    A huge amount down to this site (plus flyer talk) eg yesterday I put car in for MOT @ 830am – there a tesco opposite it so chanced arm and checked for 3V cards (it’s been sold out for 3 weeks)… Sitting there were 20 cards which I bought and out on new spend for wife’s 2-4-1 voucher lol. She thinks I’m mad

• Londonbus says:

  9 Jun9 June 13:22

  I suspect the Daily Wail readership and survey respondents think of Airmiles i.e.

  * Redeem in WhY
  * No tax fees charges (i.e. “free”)
  * Accumulate miles slowly through shopping in a semi-random fashion.

  Since cattle is the worse class to redeem in (unless you need a last-minute flight) for Avios and that you’ll end up acquiring points slowly unless you game it – no surprise.

  Be thankful for the uninformed – they subsidise those of us who frequent HFP and Flyertalk…

• Mike says:

  9 Jun9 June 14:38

  “55% said it took too long to get anything of value”

  Depending on their sample, I can believe this. Remember that a lot of people will buy ultra-discount economy tickets to shortish haul destinations which give reduced miles. If they’re doing that once a year for a family holiday then it’s going to take a while to save up points. They may then find it hard to redeem them.

  I think these reward programmes are only really beneficial if you’re flying regularly or are a big spender (compared to the average guy), so if the same questions were asked to a sample of such people I think we’d see quite different answers.

  • Peter Taylor says:

    9 Jun9 June 15:54

    In other words a “frequent flyer” – and thuis benefitting from a “frequent flyer programme”.

• Paul says:

  9 Jun9 June 17:02

  What can you say…it was the daily Mail!

  I cant quite bring myself to adjust my perspective. Avios are supposed to be a reward. They have also undoubtedly become harder to access in recent years and my latest booking for 4 ( 2 x 241 Amex in F have costs £2300 in what BA referred to as taxes throughout my time on the phone. It is not of course as of the £585 (+ £15 offline fee) £359 (+£15 offline fee) went and stays with BA via their outrageous fuel surcharge.

  Of course I derive some comfort from seeing that the fare is £18292 for the four of us which would not and could not be afforded.

  I now hold all my points outwith the BA programme and via this and other sites look to get best value. My loyalty was taken for granted by BA and so I now play the game taking advantage of the offers and as many of the legitimate exploits I can.

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