"Free flights twice as fast if you’ve not exchanged with Airmiles before.
There’s never been a better time to start exchanging your Clubcard vouchers for Airmiles. This offer is available for customers who have not previously exchanged Clubcard vouchers for Airmiles and is valid on one transaction only**."
"**Twice the Airmiles offer is available for customers who have not previously exchanged Clubcard vouchers for Airmiles and is valid on one transaction only for vouchers exchanged between 02/11/09 and 21/03/10."
This is a very aggressive offer, but note:
1. You must NOT have transferred to Air Miles before and
2. Only ONE transaction is allowed although that transaction can presumably be as big as you want
The real benefit of Air Miles is that you do NOT pay any taxes or fuel surcharges on the tickets. This is especially beneficial for short haul redemptions. Sometimes, you also find that Air Miles redemptions are booked into revenue buckets so you will receive BA Miles and Tier Points when you fly - but don't rely on this.
As an example ... Athens is 2,500 Air Miles in Y. This historically required £100 of Tesco vouchers, which meant sacrificing 24,000 BA Miles. It would now only need £50 of vouchers or sacrificing 12,000 BA Miles.
You can also redeem Air Miles for brochure holidays at roughly 6p per Air Mile. This is usually not a great deal for Tesco vouchers but at the double-up rate it becomes attractive.
Note that I am NOT an expert on Air Miles and cleared out my account a year or so ago. However, there are people on here who are and I'm sure one of them can answer any queries about the scheme for newbies.
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Thanks for the heads up. I benefited greatly the previous time they made this offer so am presumably disqualified from this deal. I wonder if the experts will find a workaround.
Another advantage with Airmiles is that it is not BA- or OW-specific, unlike BA Miles. We have redeemed in miles-earning classes on CO and LX for example. (The CO flights enabled us to extend the life of our miles in the pathetic Flying Blue scheme.)
I'm beginning to think I should make more use of the Airmiles scheme, given the benefits mentioned. Economy flights in Europe are worthwhile, unlike BA Miles, and the LloydsTSB AmEx is a reasonable way of earning miles. Pity about the £10 earning units, though - £9.99 earns 0 miles, £10 earns 1, £19.99 earns 1 etc, so I would need to manage transactions just hitting exact pounds or a little above for best benefit.
If I remember, Air Miles do NOT ask for your account number when you convert. They go off and look for an account with your address and surname. This means that you cannot easily open a new account, unless you change the address on your old one first.
Despite moaning about CW rates above, East Coast USA does look quite good. Club World would be 15,000 Air Miles including the £300 of taxes etc. This is £312 of Tesco vouchers which means sacrificing 75,000 BA Miles - a good deal, especially as Air Miles swallow the taxes and you may even get miles and TP's for the flight.
I have £700 of Tesco vouchers in a box at home waiting for a good deal. Annoyingly, though, I did a very small conversion a couple of years ago when I was clearing out my Air Miles account. This is probably too risky for me to get around.
Raffles are those figures on the higher conversion rate? I seem to remember that 3.2 rate BA converters also get a higher Airmile rate but don't know what the specific rates are. What would that CW JFK flight be in that case?
Raffles are those figures on the higher conversion rate? I seem to remember that 3.2 rate BA converters also get a higher Airmile rate but don't know what the specific rates are. What would that CW JFK flight be in that case?
No, those are based on the standard '60 miles per £2.50 voucher' rate which I have doubled to 120 for the purposes of the calculations.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Raffles
Despite moaning about CW rates above, East Coast USA does look quite good. Club World would be 15,000 Air Miles including the £300 of taxes etc. This is £312 of Tesco vouchers which means sacrificing 75,000 BA Miles - a good deal, especially as Air Miles swallow the taxes and you may even get miles and TP's for the flight.
Indeed. Problem is you never know if you are going to get the miles and points do you? I did on my last short hop to FRA using Airmiles.
Most of the long Haul redemption with Airmiles are not great value even at double the rate, but the shorter Hauls are pretty good.
Despite moaning about CW rates above, East Coast USA does look quite good. Club World would be 15,000 Air Miles including the £300 of taxes etc. This is £312 of Tesco vouchers which means sacrificing 75,000 BA Miles - a good deal, especially as Air Miles swallow the taxes and you may even get miles and TP's for the flight.
Potentially a naive question, but BA Miles reward flights and MFU are dependent on reward seats being available. Do the same rules apply to airmiles flights, or do they not require there to be reward availability on your chosen date ?
I'm guessing not if some airmiles bookings have qualified for TP/BA Miles.
Certainly agree with Raffles. It's not a bad deal for most destinations in CW, especially since Airmiles include tax as well. I'd probably exclude Central/Western USA, which would cost the equivalent of 120,000 BA Miles - but that depends on how much you value miles vs tax saving. Though if you have an AMEX 241 voucher I'd stop reading, there's not much to save here. Also be wary of Airmiles' own companion voucher on its credit card, it's only for economy redemptions.
To put it into BA Miles context, here's some rough calculations for CW bookings:
Zone 4 to JFK/DXB will cost £312.50 of Tesco vouchers (equivalent to 75,500 BA Miles). BA would cost 100,000 BA Miles + tax.
Zone 5 to India/Caribbean will cost £406.25 of Tesco vouchers (equivalent to 97,500 BA Miles). BA would cost 100,000 BA Miles + tax.
Zone 6 to BKK/NRT will cost £500 (120,000 BA Miles). BA would cost 160,000 BA Miles + tax.
Zone 7 to SYD will cost £625 (150,000 BA Miles). BA would cost 200,000 BA Miles + tax.
What might be of good value is domestic returns only cost 750 Airmiles - or roughly £16 of Tesco vouchers (3840 BA Miles) and no tax either.
Of course you may look at £625 in Tesco vouchers differently and convert them into deals worth £2,500 - get a nice watch or some jewellery at Goldsmiths or even look at Virgin holidays.
There's also the slight outside chance of TP/Miles. I've definitely received these in Europe, but from what I understand it's luck of the fare bucket draw – I've always booked very last minute, which might be when there's no redemption classes available so I may have been booked into a revenue class.
It's probably a good idea this offer is open till March. We don't want BA sneaking in another 50% off sale.
The March closing date is a red-herring, though. You can only do 1 transaction at double miles, so if you don't have a stack of voucher to hand then only the late January mailing will arrive in time.
There is not even any guarantee that ordering 100 Robbie Williams CD's for 500 bonus points each will work, as the points may be delayed and not arrive until the April mailing.
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Hmmm, I have 4 Clubcard accounts. Only the main one auto converts to Tesco at the 800 rate. On the other 3 I bought some mobiles so should be due around 10,000 points from the 3 of them. So if I punch the codes in on the Clubcard at the parents address then I should end up with 4800 Airmiles. Enough for 6.4 Domestics.
Or I could push them through my main account and earn 32000 BA Miles.
At around £80 for a cheap domestic I think the Airmiles route is the one to go for with this quarters points.
So if I punch the codes in on the Clubcard at the parents address then I should end up with 4800 Airmiles. Enough for 6.4 Domestics.
Well, your parents (or someone with an Air Miles address registered at your parents) will get the miles. Remember they never ask for your number, they simply match addresses.
Your plan also assumes that vouchers sent to Address A can be put through an account registered at Address B. With BA Miles this rarely works.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Raffles
Well, your parents (or someone with an Air Miles address registered at your parents) will get the miles. Remember they never ask for your number, they simply match addresses.
Your plan also assumes that vouchers sent to Address A can be put through an account registered at Address B. With BA Miles this rarely works.
Ah, so if I have a Tesco account registered at the same address that my Airmiles is at but have never sent Tesco points from that account to Airmiles then I should get the 100% bonus AND get them put in to my usual Airmiles account?
I will send them all to Airmiles and then just change addresses to my home address and then just get airmiles to consolidate it all to one address.
I think I will hold on to the vouchers and see what I can earn before the end of this new quarter to max out the benefit.
I benefited greatly the previous time they made this offer so am presumably disqualified from this deal. I wonder if the experts will find a workaround. 
