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.