Avios – Cost Benefit

[asifkazi]

Hi Everyone,

I’m new to the Avios game and after years of looking over the fence at points collectors have decided to start collecting Avios in the hope that we, as a family, can enjoy some amazing flight experiences.

I’ve being crunching some numbers and believe that in the first year alone we can accumulate between 182,400 and 237,400 Avios points with an outlay of £444 or £549 respectively. This works out to around 408 Avios per pound or £432 Avios per pound.
This is through a combination of Amex Platinum, Barclaycard Avios\Barclaycard Avios Plus and Barclays Premier. We are relatively high spenders (£50k/year) so can achieve the triggers for bonuses and vouchers

I’ve priced the cost as follows,

Amex Platinum – £300 (£650-£200-£150… £350 is the value I put on dining and travel insurance as I would spend on those anyway)
Barclays Avios Rewards – £144 (£12 per month)
Barclaycard Avios Plus (me) – £45 (normally £20 per month but includes £5 discount and only keeping for 3 months until i trigger £10,000 upgrade voucher then downgrade card)
Barclaycard Avios Plus (wife) – £60 (keeping for 3 months until i trigger £10,000 upgrade voucher then downgrade to free card)
As we also have a Barclays mortgage we’d get an additional 700 Avios per month for having the Rewards account.

The lower points total is if I use the free Barclaycard Avios card and my wife does not at all, however this means we will only get 1 upgrade voucher as the trigger is £20,000.

So, i guess my questions are…

Does this sound like a viable strategy?
Am i over complicating this?
Do my numbers stack up… is this actually achievable?
Is this good value?
Is it good value to pay an extra £100 for another 50,000 points by going for the Plus credit card?

Apologies for the length of this post and if the answers are obvious, still trying to get my head round the value of points.

Thanks
A