[goldengirl22]

Rob Burgess wrote:

It is definitely 90k per currency per year.

Thanks, Rob. I will likely apply for the BA Amex in the interim perhaps. I’ll see how long it takes to max out my referral 90k MR first (likely only can feel on two more referrals).

alig4th wrote:

Rob Burgess wrote:

It is definitely 90k per currency per year.

In the past (talking 2 years ago here) I had 90k MR on Plat and then was able to get another two referrals on Gold MR. I hadn’t realised it was meant to be currency-specific at the time. Can only think that I got both was because AMEX hadn’t linked my MR accounts behind the scenes automatically (do they ever?), so the system “didn’t know” I’d already maxed out the currency.

My ignorance and AMEX’s bad IT were my gains. Not sure if this particular quirk has been fixed in the interim, though?

Oh that is interesting as I was planning on getting a basic MR card before cancelling my Gold card as it was. If they haven’t fixed this, that would work in my benefit.

[goldengirl22]

aq.1988 wrote:

goldengirl22 wrote:

aq.1988 wrote:

goldengirl22 wrote:

You can earn up to a maximum of 90,000 Avios, Membership Rewards®, Nectar points or bonus points per calendar year.

Just saw this on the Amex sight when looking at the details for getting a BA card. Looks like I’m out of luck either way. Ah if only I had thought about it beforehand and referred them in December instead of January!

You are limited to 90k per currency. You can get, in theory, 90k MR and 90k avios in referrals per year. You can take a BA card, and refer your friends, and they can take any card, including the Gold, and you will get your referrals in Avios.

Really? Is that the norm? The Amex website makes it sound like it’s 90k MR OR Avios OR Nectar, not 90k MR AND 90k Avios AND 90k Nectar.

Yes, that’s how it works. I agree the wording isn’t the clearest, but you just have to make sure you generate the referral from the right card.

There’s a couple of great offers on the BA cards atm, just have to go direct to the BA website, as their offers are better than anything you would get with a referral.

Cheers! I’ll have a look into it and give it a go. MR is better than Avios is better than nothing.

[goldengirl22]

aq.1988 wrote:

goldengirl22 wrote:

You can earn up to a maximum of 90,000 Avios, Membership Rewards®, Nectar points or bonus points per calendar year.

Just saw this on the Amex sight when looking at the details for getting a BA card. Looks like I’m out of luck either way. Ah if only I had thought about it beforehand and referred them in December instead of January!

You are limited to 90k per currency. You can get, in theory, 90k MR and 90k avios in referrals per year. You can take a BA card, and refer your friends, and they can take any card, including the Gold, and you will get your referrals in Avios.

Really? Is that the norm? The Amex website makes it sound like it’s 90k MR OR Avios OR Nectar, not 90k MR AND 90k Avios AND 90k Nectar.

[goldengirl22]

You can earn up to a maximum of 90,000 Avios, Membership Rewards®, Nectar points or bonus points per calendar year.

Just saw this on the Amex sight when looking at the details for getting a BA card. Looks like I’m out of luck either way. Ah if only I had thought about it beforehand and referred them in December instead of January!

[goldengirl22]

BuildBackBetter wrote:

After 90k MR, you can eat more referral bonuses only in another currency (Amex rewards currency). This means the British airways cards or nectar or Marriott bonvoy cards.

Ah damn. I thought as much. I don’t know how I feel about committing to Avios when I may not use them (never flown BA before, only flying Qatar for the first time now), and we don’t have a Sainsbury’s nearby. I’m not quite sure what to do lol. I don’t want to waste my referral bonuses but I also don’t want to put them somewhere I won’t use them.

[goldengirl22]

Thanks Yonasl! We’ve booked our lounge access already to be on the safe side but we’re also flying out early. I’ve never had an issue before either which is very lucky for me, I guess?

[goldengirl22]

Unfortunately, I only have the Gold Card.

[goldengirl22]

I’ve decided to go for the 90k + £400 return flights from Melbourne for my dates. I will have to wait until the weekend to book them so hopefully the seats will still remain! I will also have to transfer across the points, which they say can take 48 hours.

I will look into using my remaining points for domestic flights. Hopefully I can use it for at least one of the flights!

Thanks everyone!

[goldengirl22]

Does anyone have enough Krisflyer or partner points to check Singapore Airlines for me, for how much Points + Cash would reduce a flight? It’s coming up to £1536 for me but a lot of it is fare. The flights are:

LHR-MEL Feb 25th 09:10-18:10(+1d)
SYD-LHR Mar 17th 19:10-07:20(+1d)

Thank you!

[goldengirl22]

Lyn wrote:

Just in case you can’t use points for the long-haul flights, or don’t use all of them, it is worth noting that Avios can be very useful for internal Qantas flights within Australia. This includes business class flights which would give you access to Qantas business class lounges.

Oh, thank you! I didn’t realise that but that’s great! Does that include Jetstar too, by any chance?

[goldengirl22]

nectar collector wrote:

goldengirl22 wrote:

nectar collector wrote:

goldengirl22 wrote:

Huh, that is crazy! No fault on your parts! Thank you for going through the effort for me! I wish I could do this myself but I don’t want to commit to Avios when I might use Asia Miles instead.

Could I possibly ask for one more dummy search? On BA.com the following return flights are coming to £1323 and it’s giving me £20 off with 2k. Could you possibly try it and see what it offers you both? Thank you!

LHR-MEL Feb 25th 08:05-18:25(+1d) Qatar
SYD-LHR Mar 17th 22:00-13:20(+1d) Qatar

Yes, starts at £20 for 2k up to £330 for 77k . No higher option for less than 90k, max is £620 for 144600

Thank you for looking! So that’s 77k + £1k for return. Quite a bit!

Yes……it’s a feature of part pay with Avios that the ‘exchange rate’ gets worse the higher number of Avios you use…..goes back to the point about base value of Avios if you convert them to nectar, which is fixed at 0.67 per point. Your 77k would be worth £515 on that basis, but 2k would only be worth £13.40 instead of the £20 BA/Qatar are offering

Makes sense! A shame though.

[goldengirl22]

VerdantBacon wrote:

goldengirl22 wrote:

VerdantBacon wrote:

20 off for 2000
40 off for 6100
70 off for 12900
110 off for 22800
150 off for 33000
230 off for 53200
330 off for 77000
500 off for 116700
620 off for 144600

Options that are coming up for me on these flights

Ah, so it gets weaker the more points you use? That’s unusual but thank you for checking! Would you be able to check the same flights on Qatar for the Avios redemptions options too? No worries if not!

Maximum discount on QR is 669 off for 83,893, QR’s price is 1,337.44 so a touch higher

Ah, thank you! So that’s 83,893 + £668. That’s slightly better! The best I have found shopping around, except returning from Adelaide.

[goldengirl22]

Thank you so much for looking. It’s quite terrible how low the fares are and how high the taxes are! No wonder reward redemption is terrible here.

[goldengirl22]

nectar collector wrote:

goldengirl22 wrote:

Huh, that is crazy! No fault on your parts! Thank you for going through the effort for me! I wish I could do this myself but I don’t want to commit to Avios when I might use Asia Miles instead.

Could I possibly ask for one more dummy search? On BA.com the following return flights are coming to £1323 and it’s giving me £20 off with 2k. Could you possibly try it and see what it offers you both? Thank you!

LHR-MEL Feb 25th 08:05-18:25(+1d) Qatar
SYD-LHR Mar 17th 22:00-13:20(+1d) Qatar

Yes, starts at £20 for 2k up to £330 for 77k . No higher option for less than 90k, max is £620 for 144600

Thank you for looking! So that’s 77k + £1k for return. Quite a bit!

[goldengirl22]

Jamie. wrote:

@goldengirl22 if you’re looking for the lowest possible cash outlay, I think routing back with Qatar via Adelaide (as nectar collector highlighted earlier in the thread) is probably your best option.

Outbound: 25th Feb 2023 LHR-DOH-SYD: 45,000 Avios + £249 taxes
Return: 17th March 2023 ADL-DOH-LHR: 45,000 Avios + £143 taxes

The price of a cash ticket from Sydney to Adelaide is currently £80-£100 (or Melbourne to Adelaide £50-80).

That’s a total cash outlay of less than £500 total.

Ah, yes! I have a note of that too. I may have to do this if it save me money in the long run but it will also depend on my plans too. I guess I’d have to make sure I get to Adelaide with enough time to collect my luggage and check back in again? A bit of a pain but it might be worth the hassle if it’s the best I can find.

Thanks!

[goldengirl22]

VerdantBacon wrote:

20 off for 2000
40 off for 6100
70 off for 12900
110 off for 22800
150 off for 33000
230 off for 53200
330 off for 77000
500 off for 116700
620 off for 144600

Options that are coming up for me on these flights

Ah, so it gets weaker the more points you use? That’s unusual but thank you for checking! Would you be able to check the same flights on Qatar for the Avios redemptions options too? No worries if not!

[goldengirl22]

Huh, that is crazy! No fault on your parts! Thank you for going through the effort for me! I wish I could do this myself but I don’t want to commit to Avios when I might use Asia Miles instead.

Could I possibly ask for one more dummy search? On BA.com the following return flights are coming to £1323 and it’s giving me £20 off with 2k. Could you possibly try it and see what it offers you both? Thank you!

LHR-MEL Feb 25th 08:05-18:25(+1d) Qatar
SYD-LHR Mar 17th 22:00-13:20(+1d) Qatar

[goldengirl22]

nectar collector wrote:

goldengirl22 wrote:

I’ve had a look on the BA website for Qatar redemptions fights and the taxes are cheaper for the outgoing flight. For the return flight, there are no reward flights so I will pay with points and cash. I have 2500 Avios in the account right now, but when I go to check out and say to reduce the costs with points, it says only 1000 Avios will be applied to reduce the cost by $18 AUD. Does anyone know why this is limited? Thanks!

I’ve tried that Sydney – London cash economy dummy booking on 17 March and it’s showing the part pay with Avios offers starting at A$45 for 2800 Avios – so maybe it’s because you only have 2500 Avios in your account?

Oh, that’s interesting! It’s only showing me $18 off for 1000 Avios, so I thought it would go straight to 2500, but maybe not! So I guess this means transferring everything remaining and hoping for the best that I can use them all?

Does BA also restrict Avios + cash redemptions to 50% of the cost, as Qatar does?

[goldengirl22]

The outbound flight is 45k + £250 fees. The inbound flight is $1270 AUD, which is approx £700. If I can pay for some of it with my remaining 45k points and then pay the rest by cash, it should be about $810 AUD/£450. Which means return flights with Qatar on the days I want with the timings I want at 90k + £600. It might be more expensive than a return flight but it’s the best I can get, unfortunately. All I need to work out is the max/best way to use the Avios to pay for it.

[goldengirl22]

I’ve had a look on the BA website for Qatar redemptions fights and the taxes are cheaper for the outgoing flight. For the return flight, there are no reward flights so I will pay with points and cash. I have 2500 Avios in the account right now, but when I go to check out and say to reduce the costs with points, it says only 1000 Avios will be applied to reduce the cost by $18 AUD. Does anyone know why this is limited? Thanks!

[goldengirl22]

Thank you so much!! That is approximately £700, which is still a bit but better than £1000.

Could I possibly ask you for another favour please? Would you be able to look up the miles + cash redemption for those flights and the following flights, to see what kind of discount 90k points gives?

LHR-MEL FEB 25th 11:15-23-00(+1) Cathay Pacific
SYD-LHR MAR 17th 22:20-15:00(+1) Cathay Pacific

Thank you in advance.

[goldengirl22]

memesweeper wrote:

goldengirl22 wrote:

Thank you but I don’t shop at Sainsbury’s enough to make use of the £600. I’d rather use it for flights as I consider points as an added bonus to my otherwise normal spending!

You can spend Nectar at Argos or Ebay too. There’s almost nothing you can’t get from those two outlets. Within a year I’m certain you could blast through £ 600 of Nectar.

As to your point about “added bonus”, I agree. It’s horrible to spend points on non-aspirational nonsense like tins of beans and toasters. However, despite holding out for years against spending points for anything other than leisure/holidays, this is what I do:

– I have a Chase holiday savings account
– If I transfer Avios to Nectar (or make any other non-holiday redemption from Amex) I put the equivalent sum in the savings account
– I spend the savings account funds exclusively on non-essential holidays and leisure

unfortunately, post-pandemic, this unsexy way of spending Amex/Avios can clearly be the best way.

That’s not a bad idea. I’ll keep it in mind if I do t find a decent redemption/discount for my Australia flights!

[goldengirl22]

nectar collector wrote:

Qatar flights London – Melbourne return on your dates are showing £330 reduction for using 77k Avios , the nearest option to your 90k, so this isn’t a great exchange rate compared to the approx £600 you could get by cashing them out to Nectar and spending them in Sainsbury.

You can book cash plus miles using Asia Miles on Cathay but not sure they offer cash and miles with Avios.

Thank you but I don’t shop at Sainsbury’s enough to make use of the £600. I’d rather use it for flights as I consider points as an added bonus to my otherwise normal spending!

Does anyone have Cathay or AirAsia miles that could possibly check for me? I’d really appreciate it.

[goldengirl22]

nectar collector wrote:

Not sure if it’s practical for you, but Qatar do have 45k availability on 17 March for Adelaide to London

Oh, thanks! I’ll have a look and see if I can make it work.

[goldengirl22]

Thanks for the help!

Qatar, for my dates, I can only get one way tickets at 45k. The return is always priced at 90k which is annoying.

Qantas, it is asking for 200k for reward flights.

I am trying to work out how to see how much 90k would be ‘worth’ in a miles plus cash payment. Unfortunately without miles for either, I cannot see.

I wouldn’t mi d going via the US as I love flying VA but once again, I can’t see the flights in the website. It crashes when I try, which isn’t handy!

I’ll try again. I have seen Cathay is the cheapest in cost (just over £1k). If I could see how much 99k would take off in a miles plus cash scenario, I would be interested.

Thanks again for your help.