Airline Reward Schemes

jon86 · 18 Dec 2013 at 01:10

Vanilla said:
...
Finally I have 320k US Airways miles which is enough to go London > Australia first class return...twice I bought these miles though as it worked out cheaper than an economy ticket from Australia....

Wow, would you be so kind to explain how to do this? It sounds like something I should try...

Teledude · 18 Dec 2013 at 08:02

US are finally merging with AA so come March next year they will be part of OneWorld - any participating airline's points can be used for redemption

Russinating · 18 Dec 2013 at 09:23

I've got 40,000 odd AA points to use as well. Was planning on NY next year in the winter time.

randomshenans · 18 Dec 2013 at 09:36

I was told that I would get a bonus x number of points from AMEX if I spent over like 5k in the first 3 months. I managed to smash that, but haven't seen any bonus. I bet it's amex.fr that don't do it though, which annoys the hell out of me that they do completely seperate deals and bonuses.

tlrBeta · 18 Dec 2013 at 15:23

DRZ said:
About to tick over to BA Silver. I fly quite a lot in my current role so I've racked up the TPs quite quickly. Slightly annoyingly, company policy is to only fly discounted economy and I pretty much only fly shorthaul so that's 10TP per segment - ouch!

Same as my company, it's almost pointless for me to try and attempt it / be too bothered.

That's 30 return flights in 1 year = 30 weeks away from home a year....no thanks.

I only want the lounge access for when on holiday

DRZ · 19 Dec 2013 at 10:05

tlrBeta said:
Same as my company, it's almost pointless for me to try and attempt it / be too bothered.

That's 30 return flights in 1 year = 30 weeks away from home a year....no thanks.

I only want the lounge access for when on holiday

I'm rarely out for a full week but I've probably been outside of the UK for maybe 40% of the year this year. 29 offices across EMEA does tend to imply a lot of travel

Lounge access and the bonus Avios are the main reasons to have status tbh - even flying shorthaul across Europe, being able to get away from the crowds and queues and relax on relatively comfortable seats etc makes things much more pleasant!

Russinating · 19 Dec 2013 at 10:13

If you're just interested in lounge access then look at the Amex Gold card. You get Lounge Club membership with entitles you to two free lounge visits and £15 thereafter. Even at £15 they're pretty good as you can spend almost that just sat in Burger King.

It's free for the first year and £125 thereafter but the other benefits pay for that for me.

randomshenans · 19 Dec 2013 at 10:18

That the Priority Pass? Got that with the Platinum but it only works in certain airports too. No T5 lounge & in Copenhagen I had to go to the peasants lounge

not the really nice one. It still had free beer, comfy seats, food and sockets so not too bad.

If you can only fly econ with work, see if you can get any last minute upgrades on the flights for ~50quid. I have done this on a number of short haul flights as it boosts a 10 TP journey to 40 points, which for the amount it costs, I think is pretty good.

londonbairn · 19 Dec 2013 at 10:37

Virgin Gold, at 100k points, i use them a lot for "free" flights to Edinburgh with my missus. I fly to NY several times a year on First class with work, so racks up the tier points quickly.

Also gather points on my Virgin AMEX

tlrBeta · 19 Dec 2013 at 11:45

I do have priority pass already actually (through my bank) and honestly...yes they are OK actually, the one in Birmingham is nice - not used Heathrow (none in T5) but Airline Lounges > Priority pass

On the point of upgrades, I have seen that actually business upgrades are around £75 usually but does tend to add up if I start doing that

WillyNelson · 19 Dec 2013 at 11:53

I've got about 30,000 points form lots of trans-atlantic stuff I was doing last year but my silver level has lapsed. Don't think I'll ever use those points...

randomshenans · 19 Dec 2013 at 11:55

I work on the logic that if I can shoehorn 4 (small) bottles of Champagne on the flight that it's kind of worth it, then the TP on top & the queue jumping etc makes it smoother.

Basher · 19 Dec 2013 at 12:22

londonbairn said:
Virgin Gold, at 100k points, i use them a lot for "free" flights to Edinburgh with my missus. I fly to NY several times a year on First class with work, so racks up the tier points quickly.

Also gather points on my Virgin AMEX

Since when has Virgin had a first class

DRZ · 19 Dec 2013 at 15:40

randomshenans said:
That the Priority Pass? Got that with the Platinum but it only works in certain airports too. No T5 lounge & in Copenhagen I had to go to the peasants lounge not the really nice one. It still had free beer, comfy seats, food and sockets so not too bad.

If you can only fly econ with work, see if you can get any last minute upgrades on the flights for ~50quid. I have done this on a number of short haul flights as it boosts a 10 TP journey to 40 points, which for the amount it costs, I think is pretty good.

They aren't often available, at least on the routes I tend to fly. I didn't take the offers up at first but I'm kicking myself for not doing so now because I'd be a low-cost TP run away from Gold

Silver is probably good enough for me for 2014. I'll most likely hit Silver again without too much trouble in 2014 and I'd be consider doing ridiculous TP runs to get to Gold in case I need a soft landing in 2015...

Tapping this post out in the CX lounge in CDG. Much nicer than the T5 GC lounges overall!

jhmaeng · 19 Dec 2013 at 17:22

I was there at the CDG CX lounge last week - it's really rather lovely. The food is also very good for a Business longe, including the freshly prepared noodles and the hot buffet. I'm flying MXP-HKG-PEK tomorrow and will be at the new HKG lounge The Bridge - excited to see what they've done.

In other news, although it probably won't apply to most here (myself included), is anyone else amazed that GGLs now get 1x Gold and 2x Silver cards to give away?!

Vanilla · 19 Dec 2013 at 18:46

jon86 said:
Wow, would you be so kind to explain how to do this? It sounds like something I should try...

So I used to live in Oz where an economy flight to London was $3000!

So what a lot of people did was the following:

- Wait until US airways has a 100% offer. You buy 50k and get 50k free ($1750).
- Now you need another 20k to go business or 50k to go first. Total cost including taxes is about $2300 business, $2800 first.
- Call up US airways and get them to book you on a flight with a partner airline

I stocked up big time. Flew home twice, first class with Thai.

Now it's a bit of a funny area, they have just merged with the other big alliance and so all bets are off right now. May losr some miles if the scheme gets worse but either way now I have access to a whole load of new airlines

Ironic Namesake · 19 Dec 2013 at 18:58

tlrBeta said:
I do have priority pass already actually (through my bank) and honestly...yes they are OK actually, the one in Birmingham is nice - not used Heathrow (none in T5) but Airline Lounges > Priority pass

On the point of upgrades, I have seen that actually business upgrades are around £75 usually but does tend to add up if I start doing that

I have unlimited access to Plaza Premium lounges across Malaysia and a few locations in Asia (HK, Shanghai) through a Citibank card , then Malaysia only through HSBC and 5 x yearly with a Priority Pass card from another Malaysian bank.

But the BA lounges in Heathrow seem better, and PP also charge for beers in some airports (HKG at least)

I used to use my Dad's BA silver card before to access lounges as we have the same first names

ronski · 19 Dec 2013 at 19:15

I never had much with Airline loyalty cards but six months after moving to Dubai I have been Gold Skywards on Emirates over the last seven years. Got about 300k skyward miles on my account but have accrued 1.8m or something with a combination of flying and credit card spend.

londonbairn · 19 Dec 2013 at 19:16

Basher said:
Since when has Virgin had a first class

Haha upper then!

[TW]Fox · 19 Dec 2013 at 19:46

Russinating said:
If you're just interested in lounge access then look at the Amex Gold card. You get Lounge Club membership with entitles you to two free lounge visits and £15 thereafter. Even at £15 they're pretty good as you can spend almost that just sat in Burger King.

It's free for the first year and £125 thereafter but the other benefits pay for that for me.

I have one of these, we used the Plaza Premium lounge at Vancouver International and to be honest I was very underwhelmed. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting but it was just a slightly nicer seating area with free drinks. I guess it doesnt help that Vancouver International is a very, very nice airport so the regular waiting areas are quite nice.

It was not bad for free but if thats what airport lounges are typically like I wouldnt pay to enter or put any effort into earning entry.