Forums › Payment cards › American Express › Newbie: what is the best strategy?
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Hi,
I am trying to figure out the best strategy for picking the right credit card to maximise collecting points in some fashion. Between my wife and I we probably spend between £30-£45k on credit cards each year. We do pretty much all our spending on them and pay them off each month.
We currently have a shared Tesco card and I have a barclaycard rewards which we use abroad on holiday. (Guessing have an existing barclaycard prevents me from getting one of those.)
As a family (two children) I want to maximise collecting of points but at the same time because of the amount we spend try and collect as many vouchers for upgrades or companion vouchers so that we can fly for less or stay in great hotels. We have some trips to the Far East and Australia planned for the next few years.
In the past we have gone in with Hilton (I used to have their CC) and was a Diamond member for about 5 years and we got great ROI on the points I had. But having used those all up I am not sure whether it’s worth going for avios or hotel points, because it seems more benefit comes from avios if you can fly outside of school holidays and get good reward flights.
Hopefully there are lots on this forum in a similar situation and could give me a good steer on what is the best strategy for getting rewards for our spending,
Thanks in advance
https://www.headforpoints.com/the-beginners-guide-to-collecting-avios-points/
And there are many more articles like that.
Just explore this site and take your time to understand the basics.
Then there are availability issues you’ll face, particularly for business redemption seats in flights to Oz.
As a fellow family of 4 who travel repeatedly to various parts of Australia for VRF reasons, but who cannot book a year in advance and who must travel on specific dates based round ours and others’ commitments, we have never found Avios much use for that journey. As you say, this is very different to those with more flexibility and longer booking timeframes – so you need to work out what group you fall into. BA have just canned the KL flights (generally the most achievable eastward redemption) so their route network east really is limited now which does reduce the utility of the BACC voucher if that’s your intended travel direction.
People may suggest interesting routings and connections to create availability or secure bargains but we know that with kids in tow, less travel time, fewer connections and less messing around in airports suddenly becomes a much higher priority with any travel plans.
Avios are still very useful for internal Aussie flights, particularly the transcontinental ones where you get “proper” business class on some aircraft. Availability on these is generally good.
Hotel points are always useful and infinitely more flexible. Hilton are particularly useful if your children are mid-range in age with guaranteed interconnecting rooms being a bit of a game changer, while, as breakfast has always been offered to all 4 of us as Gold, even though that’s not technically how it works, even the breakfast benefit starts to look significant at that point – much more so than when travelling alone and would just have grabbed something on the go anyway.
So yes, Avios or other points won’t solve all your travel requirements for big trips east; but I’d focus on specifics that it can solve and work forward from there. E.g. a nice business class flight from Melbourne to Perth, a 5-for-4 nights Hilton 2 room stay in an otherwise expensive Asian city, or even just staying at the HGI T2/T3 before your flight for a stress free morning rather than messing with shuttle buses.
If you still really have no idea where to start or what you’ll need then Amex MR points are a good target to focus on collecting as they have so many different uses. Read the HfP article on optimum credit card signup strategy (as well as all the other beginner/guide articles!) before signing up to anything though.
I discovered HFP about 10 years ago and it transformed our travel – as a family of 3 needing to travel in school holidays until fairly recently, we found avios and vouchers invaluable. We’ve had a decade of flying to exotic destinations on a similar budget to our friends who went to the overcrowded and overpriced Med in the school holidays!
Definitely spend as much time as you can reading everything on here. My own tip is to look at mixing reward flights with cash bookings if you can’t get all the avios seats you need. We often used a BAPP 241 for one parent and our son, and the other adult travelled on a BA Holiday booking with all the associated benefits. And above all, be flexible with destinations!
I would read the how a couple should earn avios article to get a better understanding how amex referral etc work and what card order works best for bonus.
Per TSS said, if you are not flexible or not willing to book a year or so in advance those popular location is not great for avios. Whilst your spending is relatively high, family of 4 needs a LOT of avios. I feel like you will have to choose hotel points or avios, maybe get a better understanding on routes availabilities.
Hotels also need a lot of points, when you are earning 1 or 2 points per £1 and a nice hotel is 100k points per night, your whole year spending gets you one night maybe. I also feel like hotel points takes a lot more time to earn enough for a stay (esp if your stays are not just one night).
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