Really pleased that there’s now a thread for Air Miles – I’ve been looking for somewhere to discuss them for ages.

Being Manchester based, following the sale of BA's non-London routes to flyBE, I shifted my Tesco points to Air Miles from BAEC Miles, to spread my redemption options (with young kids, adding half a day to either end of a weekend away, to allow for getting to/from Heathrow, stretches do-ability).

Now, with a decent collection of miles built up (25,000+) I could do with any experience in terms of maximising value. From the dummy searches I've done, I'm not convinced there's much value to be had.

You're obviously limited to airlines and hotels with which they have relationships, and certainly in terms of hotel bookings, they aren't necessarily the best in town. Also, they only ever seem to offer one grade of room, when the hotel's own site may list a range - making it hard to get a like-for-like comparison.

As for flights, as a random example, I was offered 11,000 miles or £750 for 2 economy returns MAN-EWR with United. Looking at the United website, the same flights were available at £526.