scottish minnie

I currently have around 137k of FB miles - I'd like to get over the 200k mark (to use for 2 transatlantic flights on Delta). I didn't fly much last year and am only making around 3 domestic (Edi/Lcy) a month so I'm not getting much in the way of miles. Additionally my Gold Status is set to expire in March so I figure I'll be lucky to get 500 miles per trip. I won't be allowed into the lounge either

I can't control the class of flight I'm booked on as it's through my company agency - is there any other way to increase my miles?

I'm not keen on taking a credit card as I have an ICH one which works well for me although I guess if it was an introductory offer I could take it and cancel once I'd got the points.

Any suggestions gratefully received

sfozrhfco

Forget about the extra Flying Blue miles. You will pay around $700 in fees on one "free" ticket from GLA to LAX for instance so your "free" tickets will hardly be free.

cityflyer369

As the OP wants to fly Business, he/she will get a proper value for his/her miles, so the fees are not that big a problem.

In the UK, there is no real way of boosting your miles other than flying higher booking classes and getting a credit card.

If you fly Economy, you might wish to consider enrolling for a program that gives you more miles for your flights.
Regarding your current miles, the best way of spending them would probably be to buy miles to reach 150k and use these on 3 TATL promo awards in Business. (Note that you will rarely find 3 seats on the same plane, so I am talking about at least 2 TATL trips here.)

scottish minnie

Thanks cityflyer. You're right - I'm looking at business so am ok about the taxes. I might have to investigate the credit card route although I don't suppose that would get me more then 5 or 10k anyway.

What do you mean about enrolling for a programe that gives more miles? Do you mean with another partner airline? I don't fly with anyone else who is an Air France partner so not sure if I could do that. Sorry if I'm being thick

I've worked out once I lose my Gold status I will need something like 120+ round trips to get the points I need. That will take a while!

I did find the promotions thread on this forum however when I attempted to click the link it said it had expired in Sept 2011 so no joy there either. I guess as long as I'm flying ever other week or so I won't receive any offers.

cityflyer369

I was thinking maybe you could enroll in Delta's program. It tends to give more miles for cheap Economy flights, and you would still be able to burn your miles on AF. (No promo awards though.) And AFAIK they also have a UK credit card.

flyBHX

You might consider the UK American Express Gold card. The downside is that it costs £125 a year (£93 in year 1) but there is a 20,000 point introductory bonus if you spend £1000 in the first 3 months. Currently this equates to 25,000 FB miles, but that will drop to 20,000 soon (when the MR point:FB mile conversion rate changes from 5:4 to 1:1).

You get 1MR point per £ spent, with extra points per £ for air and rail tickets, hotels, fuel etc, so the points can soon rack up. It might be worth considering if you can charge your business travel to it.

sfozrhfco

The money it costs to buy/earn the 63,000 extra plus the $1400+ in fees is still not going to be worth it. You can get tickets on most any airline in business from GLA to the East Coast of the US for $2400-$2500 all in. Not to mention the fact that if the "dream" is to go on DL, it is not like it is going to be an amazing once in a life time experience.

scottish minnie

It's not a "dream" to go Delta. My reasoning was that I normally only fly Continental to the US as it is direct from Glasgow or Edinburgh. Flying Delta would involve a changeover in either London or Amsterdam so would take longer than I'm normally prepared to put up with. If, however, it was a business class flight with the associated lounge access etc I would have been more prepared to go for it. It's maybe a bit shallow however that's my driver for 2 business class transatlantic flights rather than 3 economy.

FlyBHX - My flights are billed directly to my employer so I'm not likely to spend enough on an Amex card to justify it. Of course the billing arrangements may change at some stage so who knows....

irishguy28

Rather than try to gain an additional 60k+ miles to fly Delta business class on a transatlantic flight, why not instead search for a decent Promo Award on Air France or KLM, for which you would need just 100k miles for 2 business class tickets from Scotland to the USA, changing in either CDG or AMS?

I don't know how familiar you are with the Flying Blue program, but a range of destinations are always on offer at half the normal redemption rates, and the destinations are updated every 2 months (the March and April destinations have just been added to the relevant page over at the Flying Blue website. (The new ones are at the bottom of each section).

If you need more info on Promo Awards, there are loads of threads on that very topic in here for you to search and read through.

If you're prepared to be a little bit flexible with dates and destination, you already have more than enough for 2 business class returns to the USA. If the current destinations don't strike you as interesting, wait until the next set of destinations are unveiled (as I said, a new set of destinations becomes valid for each 2-month booking period). You won't get the option of redeeming a Flying Blue promo award on any Delta flights - but presumably you are more interested in getting a good deal to the USA rather than truly wanting to fly on Delta. And these Promo Awards are almost universally acknowledged as the best part of the Flying Blue program - particularly for long haul business redemptions.