Hi Guys,
Bit of advice. I've just been stacking up the virgin miles over the years and now have 160k or so. I'm living down in Johannesburg but the company airline is BA so using that for most business flights. I still end up paying for about 3 return trips a year to the UK for myself and the wife however due to personal reasons. Thus we tend just to take economy flights with however is cheapest.
Can anyone please sugegst what the best way to use these miles is - 3 flights, companion flights, upgrades etc?
with 160k miles you could get two reward flights in PE fron JNB to LHR (plus cash for the fuel srcharge etc)
For 120k miles you could upgrade from economy to UC. You would need to have a ticket in the right fare bucket to be able to upgrade (Y,B,R,L) but for 60k miles you could move from PE (W/S bucket) into UC.
You would need to play with the VS website and do some dummny bookings to get accurate costings for all the options.
I find the Virgin miles pretty useless if trying to redeem for flights or even for using to "purchase" an upgrade.
The outrageous "fuel surplus" charges mean it is pretty pointless (pun) redeeming for a flight as these out weight any true benefit. If you do not buy a ticket in a certain bucket you cannot redeem miles for upgrade, buying a ticket in that bucket is normally a significant premium (hundreds of pounds) above where I normally buy so I do not pay that premium and at risk of presumption, I believe if flying personally you will not either.
They have clearly made a corporate decision to restrict the effectiveness of their FF programme for redemption by budget travelers and at the end of the day Virgin and BA use the same approach so they have you well and truly bent over a barrel.
Despite my observation, in all reality you are probably best using them against a flight if you can, but when it says free BEWARE (you can expect to pay about 70-80% of the normal cheap cost due to the for mentioned charges!). Maybe you can try a Miles & Money approach, effective and relatively easy.
Remember both BA and Virgin were profitable last year and suffer from limited true competition so can afford to take a strong approach to redeeming miles.
As I am based in the UK I have other options and I use mine for free wine and free balloon rides (booked 4 last year) but I suspect this option is not open to you.....
I am in SA but technically my account is still absed in the UK. Additionally i don't mind using my miles for stuff in the UK even if I don't diretly benefit - e.g. case of wine or the parents at Christmas is always going to get used. Equally, I think they'd enjoy the hot air ballooning.
I'm not on HH at the moment, but could obviously ammend them. Are HH any better for redemption - e.g. are available dates stupidly confined to every Tuesday 17th, unless it's a leap-year in which case it's every Friday 22nd?
Is it as straightforward as 160k airmiles would get me 80k HH points which would work out at 2 nights at their Category 6 hotels?
Thanks - and sorry for the basic questions. I've just generally let them build up and thought I'd come back at a later date to use them... but finding that tricky.
You don't pay taxes now on European flights with BA, only a flat £27 Y / £37 J / £40 F (only Moscow has F).
This makes European flights a fantastic bargain. You even get free UK connections if not based in London (and free Spanish connections if travelling somewhere other than Madrid on IB).
I have over 170K FCC miles which I will redeem on other airlines eg MH, SA when the time comes.
As to the BA miles... You do know that you can redeem flights on the entire Oneworld network originating from anywhere don't you?
Byrn,
If you have an AMEX card, you can access their AXON benefits on HHonors points if you do turn them into 320,000 points. The biggest advantage is on a 4 night stay at their top property, instead of 200,000 points, you get it for 145,000 points. So technically you could book 2 reservations of 4 nights each and get 8 days, or even if you just do a 4 night stay, you still have 175,000 points left.
I guess it just depends on how you value your points, in airlines or hotels, but that is an optimal way to use on HHonors points if you have an AMEX.
Byrn,
If you have an AMEX card, you can access their AXON benefits on HHonors points if you do turn them into 320,000 points. The biggest advantage is on a 4 night stay at their top property, instead of 200,000 points, you get it for 145,000 points. So technically you could book 2 reservations of 4 nights each and get 8 days, or even if you just do a 4 night stay, you still have 175,000 points left.
I guess it just depends on how you value your points, in airlines or hotels, but that is an optimal way to use on HHonors points if you have an AMEX.
I believe the AXON benefit is only for Hilton branded Amex cards. These do not exist in the UK. Not sure about South Africa.
There is a discount for having Hilton elite status though, where 4 nights at a 50k hotel costs 170k instead of 200k, and bigger savings for more nights.
.
