Originally Posted by
johnaalex
I remember when the Air Miles scheme was first launched in the UK and although at that time I was not even a member of BAEC I thought it would be wonderful to actually get a free flight, little did I realise how much I would benefit from the scheme.
I have just booked my 50th trip using BA Air Miles/Avios since my first “reward trip” in 1996. This latest booking is for LHR:HKG on CX in F. All of my rewards have been in F or J with about 40 being in F and most of them have been 241s thanks to my, and my partner’s, Amex cards. I reckon that has meant I have had at least 60 first class tickets for “free”. I am not sure how to attribute an accurate monetary value to all those flights but I think it has to be around £250,000, but I am happy to be told otherwise.
On a sentimental note, I wish I had kept some of those old paper vouchers!
You've probably also paid somewhere between $25,000 - $40,000 to BA in various fees that go along with the "free" tickets, still a nice value. Put another way, you could have probably made all the same trips you did on redemption tickets in paid Y for the same amount of money, and maybe even some highly discounted business class tickets. Still, all nice, but not a complete gift.