Air Miles / Frequent Flyers

Andyt_uk

Andyt_uk

Andyt_uk

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Joined
14 Dec 2003
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2,149
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Malvern
I'm going to be doing a fair bit of flying shortly but was wondering if anyone knew the best way of collecting air miles was? The flights are with different airlines so is there any system that allows you to collect points for any flight on one card? Admittedly I know nothing about them and how they work so if anyone knows then that'd be great.

With quite a few flights coming up it would be great if I could collect points for them for some freebies next time round :)

Cheers!
 
Not 100% sure if you can collect air miles together with various airlines. The only way i know is that each airline has its own air miles scheme.
 
you can turn tesco clubcard points into airmiles

no idea what airlines you can use them with. But you can earn tesco clubcard points with your energy bills too. We get them with EON.
 
What routes will you be flying and which airlines will you likely be using? The best way to do what you want to do is pick an airline alliance. I collect my miles with Star Alliance through bmi Diamond Club. Even though only a fraction of my miles are actually flown with bmi, most of them are with Continental and United, I still have Star Alliance Gold status and a load of miles to spend.

So in my case I can fly with any of the Star Alliance airlines and collect the miles in my bmi Diamond Club account but if I flew with BA, Delta or American, I have to collect those miles in a different FF programme in the oneworld alliance. They cannot be combined between alliances.

The three main alliances are Star Alliance, oneworld and Skyteam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_alliances

Which alliance and airlines you choose will depend on whether you want to collect status miles to earn elite frequent flyer status for the benefits such as lounge access, priority boarding and check in, upgrades and whatnot, or if you want to collect miles to spend of redemption flights.


BTW I have to warn you, it's addictive. When you start collecting miles and FF status it's difficult to stop! I've done about 150k miles in the past year :D
 
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If you are doing lots of flying get a creditcard that is affiliated with the airline you will do most travelling with.
American express have one with BA, accumulate points per £ spent and also spend £20k on it in a year and when you redeem your airmiles for your flight they will give you a matching ticket for your partner. First/Business class will be matched.

Likewise Mastercard have a card with BMI that gives points for every £ spent.

Also get a loyalty card for the hotels you stay in, pretty easy to rack up a few free weeks in some top hotels.
 
cheers for the replies guys. Most of the flights are with asia based airlines, Cathay Pacific, Vietnam Airlines, Air Asia and Jetstar. Unfortunately none seem to be under the same alliance.

I can't seem to figure out how oneworld works though. That alliance covers most of the airlines I'd use in the future but it says you have to apply through the member airlines?
 
Andyt_uk said:
I can't seem to figure out how oneworld works though. That alliance covers most of the airlines I'd use in the future but it says you have to apply through the member airlines?
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Yep, so just choose one airline in the alliance and sign up to its FF scheme - you can then collect points through any airline in the alliance.
 
I've just signed up to asia miles as its partner'd with quite a few airlines I'll use.

Does anyone know how long it takes for miles to show up on the account though? I've added the numbers to my booking on the Cathay Pacific site for my first flight but it's not credited with any miles yet. I guess it takes some time to get processed.
 
Andyt_uk said:
I've just signed up to asia miles as its partner'd with quite a few airlines I'll use.

Does anyone know how long it takes for miles to show up on the account though? I've added the numbers to my booking on the Cathay Pacific site for my first flight but it's not credited with any miles yet. I guess it takes some time to get processed.
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The miles won't credit until you actually take the flight, after which they'll usually appear within a few days.
 
Star Aliiance gold here as well. No more queues :) plus access to the Sky Team lounge in T4 at Heathrow which is pretty nice. If you are flying on different alliances sign up to them as well, no point letting the miles go to waste.
 
drew said:
Star Aliiance gold here as well. No more queues :) plus access to the Sky Team lounge in T4 at Heathrow which is pretty nice. If you are flying on different alliances sign up to them as well, no point letting the miles go to waste.
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Can we get into the T4 Skyteam lounge with star gold? I'm flying out of T4 in a few weeks and that would be handy!
 
Yea changed recently. Used to go in when I flew business but they opened it up to Gold + 1 now too.

I'm flying out to Tucson via IAH on the 7th of October, CO35.
 
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It's a shame you can't get into lounges if you're not flying with Star Alliance any more.
What you want is Lufthansa's HON Circle.. You get picked up in a Cayenne or Panamera and whisked off to a special terminal just for you :p
 
drew said:
Yea changed recently. Used to go in when I flew business but they opened it up to Gold + 1 now too.

I'm flying out to Tucson via IAH on the 7th of October, CO35.
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Serious? I'm on CO35 on the 7th too! :D Headed to New Orleans.
 
I think bmi are doing a promo at the moment where if you sign up you get to silver level right away. Free access to the lounges etc. You normally need a whack of miles before you get this.
 
ringo747 said:
I think bmi are doing a promo at the moment where if you sign up you get to silver level right away. Free access to the lounges etc. You normally need a whack of miles before you get this.
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Can't say I've heard of that. Silver normally takes 16000 status miles from Blue Plus however I think they've done away with Blue Plus now. I wouldn't be too happy about that as a current member having earnt the status through loyalty.
 
ringo 747- Can you provide more details? Might be off with BMI next month...

No info about this on their website.

Thanks
 
Well I know it's definitely true as I have just booked a honeymoon and my travel agent sorted it out for me! It will be a while before I get the stuff through but I'll post back.
 
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