Originally Posted by
kosy91
This
I've been flying LBA-LHR-FRA return or MAN-LHR-FRA return on a weekly basis (almost) for the past 8 months instead of a direct and much more convenient routing on LH MAN-FRA
Avios and TPs get me a lot further than Miles and More would. Plus being UK based I value avios more than LH M&M. As long as BA get me from A to B I'm happy as I dont expect too much else from them. I do love it when I enjoy the drinks and food in the lounges at BA's expense
*obviously in the above I haven't taken into consideration that my employer has a corporate deal with BA which gives me fully flexible tickets with BA, whereas with LH I have to buy the cheapest and pay their exorbitant change fee
Unfortunately my employer does business through Carlson Wagon Lit, so it's only thanks to Google that I now know their hotel discount codes (and they aren't very good this year unless I use a HGI or a Hampton) - thinking about it, when I lived in the UK the company was paying for my flights to Germany and I was booking via CWT using my employers corp rates so maybe that is why LH seemed cheap last year, so I really need to find out what their corp codes are...
Avios are so easy to collect in the UK - BA Amex is the most well known I'd guess, and I think Tesco do a triple club card boost when you exchange Clubcard vouchers for Avios (BA sometimes give a bonus on Tesco redemption as well). And with 80 points per return trip, after the 8th LHR-FRA-LHR trip that's BA Silver reached. Collecting Miles and More points in Germany isn't so easy - the PayBack points system that some retailers use (bit like a Nectar card) doesn't give brilliant award amounts so converting to MM isn't great, and the MM MasterCard doesn't seem overly popular with expats on the ToyTown Germany site either. And it takes a lot of flights and a lot of flown miles, to progress through the tiers, and when you try to get a reward flight you have to pay quite hefty taxes.
It's quite sad though when points and tiers are the main reason for choosing an airline. When I was a child, I wanted to fly BA because it was BA...