Avios etc Credit Cards

Nitefly

Nitefly

Nitefly

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Hi all - I fly on an irregular basis and only for holidays. I’m trying to gauge whether it’s worth getting a credit card that will help me earn ‘air miles’ (or whatever they are called depending on the provider).

From my initial browsings it seems that you have to either fly a lot or spend a lot to make good use of said points - sort of obvious. I’m not really sure whether this outweighs the benefits offered by other credit cards.

Any experience / thoughts? Cheers!
 
If you've any large purchases coming up, new car, new kitchen etc. Then a big spend on those could certainly net you some free flights.

But as you say, from the occasional flight, or odd purchase means these cards aren't ideal.
 
The Avios card is a waste of time if you aren’t flying very frequently. You also need to pay full price or book into a more expensive cabin to start benefitting from lounge access and potential upgrades.

We’ve made use of the companion flights, which are a nice perk, but we’d be better doing all our Sainsbury’s shopping on a nectar points card and using those to reduce our grocery bill I think. Need to change our card.

EDIT: the free flights tend to be quite inflexible too. You need to book miles in advance and be prepare to be flexible with your dates.
 
I use combinations of Amex gold rewards, Virgin credit card and the BA premium card, 30 months use has netted 4 business class returns to Hong Kong and 2 premium to NY

my card depend is probably 20-25k a year, a few miles have come from other sources but mostly from card spend
 
tom_nieto said:
The Avios card is a waste of time if you aren’t flying very frequently. You also need to pay full price or book into a more expensive cabin to start benefitting from lounge access and potential upgrades.

We’ve made use of the companion flights, which are a nice perk, but we’d be better doing all our Sainsbury’s shopping on a nectar points card and using those to reduce our grocery bill I think. Need to change our card.

EDIT: the free flights tend to be quite inflexible too. You need to book miles in advance and be prepare to be flexible with your dates.
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sounds like you aren't getting good use out of what you are doing, the amount of flights you make isn't relevant if getting miles for card spend, reward flights are better use than upgrades so you never pay "full price" for a ticket

the companion flight if you mean the ones where you buy one and get a companion one are next to useless, the BA reward companion flight is excellent though
 
tom_nieto said:
EDIT: the free flights tend to be quite inflexible too. You need to book miles in advance and be prepare to be flexible with your dates.
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that bit is true to some extent, availability is often quite limited in business class but bet being early ( as soon as flights released) I have never failed to get exactly what I wanted
 
Been collecting Avios through credit card spends pretty much exclusively (we aren't frequent flyers so don't build up much through flights) since March 2014. So far we have been able to redeem the following with British Airways:

First Class to Hong Kong from Heathrow (2 adults)
Business Class to Heathrow from Singapore (2 adults)

First Class to San Diego from Heathrow (2 adults and infant)
First Class to Heathrow from San Francisco (2 adults and infant)

We have around 100,000 points at the moment in the account and should be looking to make another first class return redemption in the next 12-18 months. The Avios cover the costs of the flights but we still had to pay taxes on top.
 
I've had an AMEX BA Card for a couple years now, and have just qualified this week for a travel companion with 60k points in the bank.
What exactly can I get with this?
Pretty flexible on destination and time.
 
I have a BA Amex card, fly infrequently, but I put my shopping on there. There is no monthly fees, so I get points from it.

It's like free points, I am spending that money anyway, so whats not to like when the points gets me free flights upgrade. Sure, it's not enough to get me access to lounges or 1st Class ever flight but free upgrade to Premium Economy or Business or enough to pay off a night of hotel stay now and again. Nothing wrong with that.
 
JLJ said:
I've had an AMEX BA Card for a couple years now, and have just qualified this week for a travel companion with 60k points in the bank.
What exactly can I get with this?
Pretty flexible on destination and time.
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is it a companion card for a cash purchase (pretty worthless) or one for a reward purchase?
 
Rotty said:
sounds like you aren't getting good use out of what you are doing, the amount of flights you make isn't relevant if getting miles for card spend, reward flights are better use than upgrades so you never pay "full price" for a ticket

the companion flight if you mean the ones where you buy one and get a companion one are next to useless, the BA reward companion flight is excellent though
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We’ve had plenty of perks from the avios points (companion flights, used for hotels etc), however you don’t progress on the BA loyalty scheme unless you accrue “tier points”. As I understand it you don’t get these if you’re booking promotional flights or upgrading with avios.

However you are correct that we could do better with another credit card!
 
I think they are worthwhile.

The trick to maximise the miles is to only sign up when there is an offer. So, last July, I signed up for a BA Amex when they offered 20000 avios if you spent £1000 within the first 3 months. That's easily done. I change cards every 12 months, and every year I get £200-£250 off the cost of flights.
 
I use mine and collect them, normally I use a Lloyds Amex, if you spend 7k you get a free upgrade voucher.
I normally then book a Economy Plus (Or whatever its called) ticket to Bermuda(52k points), then use the upgrade ticket to hit Business.
All I pay then is around £500 in taxes (Less than an economy ticket).
 
I collect my avios very slowly.
Used them once after about 15 years of collecting when they had an offer to double my points. Got a flight to LA for about £300.
 
I've got loads of reward cards. I mainly used my Amex Gold for Amex points which can be converted into all manner of things including Amazon vouchers. I think you may even just be able to convert them into a statement credit (ie cash) now. I also have a Lloyds Avios for places that don't take Amex and a few other cards linked to Avios, ie their BA one.

It does take a lot of Avios to build up into something worthwhile but it will eventually. I neve used them to book flights directly but you can get money off any BA flights by using them, ie 1000 points gets you £20 off the flight. I recently got £250 off flights and paid just the tax and that was just from Avios that's built up over time. So, it's worth it, since they're only bettered by Amex points IMO and better than using a debit card.

Also we booked a BA flight recently and it offered you £50 off for getting the BA Amex. I already have one so my partner did it, approved straight away and even gave you the card details digitally to pay for the flight on it there and then. That was pretty good as £50 is a fair few Avios worth.
 
tom_nieto said:
We’ve had plenty of perks from the avios points (companion flights, used for hotels etc), however you don’t progress on the BA loyalty scheme unless you accrue “tier points”. As I understand it you don’t get these if you’re booking promotional flights or upgrading with avios.

!
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That's correct but tier level had no effect on reward redemptions (well there is one very technical one that you would be daft to use anyway)
 
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