Bits: 30% bonus on buying Avios – good deal?, new Gatwick Express trains in service

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• Martin says:

  6 Mar6 March 06:18

  Did you realise that when buying Avios through BAEC with a BA Am Ex card it does not count as a BA spend, so only one point per GBP. Is this fair and legal, I tried to take this up with Am Ex who said it was a BA EC issue. Persued the Ex Club to supervisor level, who said she would investigate and get back. She did call and left a message to say she had called, no information. I’m afraid I gave up at this point. Any thoughts? Why is BA EX club so difficult to deal with when there is an issue?

  • Rob says:

    6 Mar6 March 08:25

    They go via points.com for processing as do 90% of airline and hotel groups. Should be clearer I admit.

• Anon says:

  6 Mar6 March 06:20

  Thanks for running this, always looking for a miles top up + currently need to be hitting a spend target.

• Martin says:

  6 Mar6 March 07:09

  PS I gave up when I called the extension and name given by the supervisor to be told they change desks and nobody knew who she was! Forgot the best bit lol this was the Manchester office btw.

• Brian says:

  6 Mar6 March 08:21

  Presumably, one pays £575 for 45,500 Avios and not the other way round! :)) Otherwise, it would actually be a good deal…

• Pid says:

  6 Mar6 March 08:23

  Did everyone get all the points from the Groupon offer? I have never been able to claim one of my vouchers for 2000 avios as the website does not recognise the codes. I can not even log into the account I set up at the time and I never receive an email when I click on forgot password. I have emailed Groupon but no response yet. Luckily it was only the 2000 code so I have not lost too much.

  • Tom H says:

    6 Mar6 March 09:07

    Yep got all mine after quite some time as did Harry I think. There was a lot on FT about it with useful contact details

  • Bigglesgirl says:

    6 Mar6 March 15:02

    Hi Pid,
    Nope. Ordered all 5 vouchers. Got them through. Went onto the Groupon website. Entered all five voucher numbers, clicked through the enter my Iberia number and thought all was OK.
    Only one out the of the five ever converted, so only got 12k Avios. Groupon and Iberia have been terrible to deal with – Iberia blame Groupon and vice-versa. Groupon only ever email me in Spanish too.
    I’ve now reached the end of my tether and a phone call to my credit card company will be made this week before I miss the 90 day purchase protection deadline.
    Shocking – will never look at using Iberia or Groupon again

  • Pid says:

    6 Mar6 March 22:29

    Looks like I did not too badly then as my others went through. Will have to check which card I used, I think it might have been the supercard so not sure if I will get anything back from them.

  • Nick says:

    7 Mar7 March 09:16

    Mine haven’t gone through either. I only bought one, it’s been marked as redeemed on Groupon but they haven’t shown up in Iberia. Comms with Groupon haven’t been helpful, going to do a dispute with PayPal to get my money back.

• Enigma368 says:

  6 Mar6 March 08:45

  You can now use Oyster to get train to Gatwick. I dont think you save much getting the Gatwick Express but if you get the Southern or Thameslink it is only £8 one way ( I was charged £10.40 from East London so they must add on the initial tube fare to connect to the train). If you have an annual gold card, this would be reduced by 30%. Much cheaper than before.

  • Lumma says:

    6 Mar6 March 09:00

    It’s £8.60 from east London as long as you avoid zone 1, I think they expect you to get the overground to new cross gate or Norwood junction then change to national rail. It’s slightly quicker again if you can be bothered to change again at east Croydon to a non stop train.

    Just going from say, Blackfriars to gatwick is just £8 though.

    • CDB says:

      6 Mar6 March 10:32

      And even cheaper if you have an Oyster season ticket. I have zones 1-2 and now costs me £3.85 Clapham Junction to Gatwick, my wife has zones 1-4 and it only costs £2:)

      • Enigma368 says:

        6 Mar6 March 16:54

        Hard to justify the £20 Gatwick Express Oyster fare when you get a train that is 5-10mins slower for as little as 20% of the price.

• Nadir says:

  6 Mar6 March 09:37

  OT, but comments are closed on the Barclaycard IHG Rewards Card post.

  Does anyone know how points earned through the IHG Barclaycard are treated if you set your earning preference to earn miles rather than points? Do the points get converted to miles, and at what rate?

  I know you can convert them manually in batches, but I think you get a slightly better rate (esp when staying in the higher end hotels) if you have miles as your earning preference. Just don’t know if that applies to points earned through credit card spend.

  • Rob says:

    6 Mar6 March 11:35

    Go in as points, you must convert them in 10k chunks.

    • Nadir says:

      6 Mar6 March 11:41

      Thanks Raffles. That’s what I thought I’d have to do.

• @mkcol says:

  6 Mar6 March 10:57

  Well seeing Rob’s valuation makes me pretty darn happy that I got a smidge over 5p per Avios value on a recent redemption 🙂

  • Genghis says:

    6 Mar6 March 11:28

    Valuing avios is really difficult. On my most recent redemption LHR-PVG, HKG-LHR in J cost 150k avios + about GBP1k in taxes for 2 pax using a 241. The cash price was around GBP7k so I got around 4ppa of value. However, would I have paid GBP7k cash for the fare? No. I’d have taken a BA / ME3 ex-EU fare for much cheaper so I’m not truly getting 4ppa of value.

    I’m a spreadsheet buff. Do others keep spreadsheets for value of avios redemptions? Do you value the avios at what you would have paid or the value that you actually got for the flight taken?

    • Fenny says:

      6 Mar6 March 11:42

      This sounds like one of the accounting exam questions I had years ago on valuing goods at historic or current cost!

      • Genghis says:

        6 Mar6 March 13:21

        Lol. I’m an accountant by training myself but still cannot figure out how to value them. I don’t want to value at historic cost as many avios are picked up for nothing (flights). I think if I stick to 1p, if I get more value from them great and will buy if less than 0.75p.

        • harry says:

          6 Mar6 March 16:14

          I’m just a bricklayer (am I? lol) and am an inveterate averager. I get so many ‘free’ Avios by the various wheeling & dealing that HFP boards often point to, I was also very happy to pick up 230,000 Avios in the last 12 months for actual money (Groupon etc) to put some chunky Avios in the bank. I guess my average has to be well under 0.5p.

          Got a million or so stuffed down the back of the settee.

        • Fenny says:

          6 Mar6 March 19:09

          Does 20 avios with a £2.80 coffee make the coffee good value or the avios expensive?

        • Lady London says:

          9 Mar9 March 03:48

          Depends which coffee.
          If Starbucks, very very expensive indeed.
          If something with a bit more coffee in it, cheaper 🙂

    • Marc says:

      6 Mar6 March 13:12

      I completely agree. The only reason why I have Avios (or any other program) is FLEXIBILITY. For instance, I booked a rtrn flight to Boston from Madrid for 200£ (Cash), however I needed a flight to Madrid. The dates are just after Easter, and cash flights were around 200£ rtrn in economy: never ever I’d pay so much for travelling within Europe. Nevertheless I used 20.000 Avios + 40£ to travel there and back in Business, so technically I saved 60£ since I would never pay more than 100-150£ (depending on distance) to anywhere in Europe from London.I couldn’t even bother to check how much the price in business was.

      • harry says:

        8 Mar8 March 23:17

        agreed with the flexibility bit

        plenty of people would like to know how you got Madrid – Boston – Madrid for £200 lol – I guess a typo or a v cheap ex EU eco deal

  • @mkcol says:

    6 Mar6 March 15:45

    Well just to help with valuations…..I was already booked on a flight with my hubby but I used 32,500 Avios (no taxes, fees or other sundry charges on top) to buy a 3rd “comfort” seat for us. The alternative they would have charged was £1652 which was the base fare (before taxes, fees etc etc which still would not have been charged as no person travelling).

    I would NEVER pay that much cash for a 3rd seat, however more than happy to part with 32,500 Avios that I’ve picked up on credit card/Tesco promos.

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