Originally Posted by Jonally

First time poster here, excuse me if this is a naïve question. I am new to collecting Tier Points but I must confess I find myself a little perplexed by the lengths that some people will go to acquire points and status. It might be helpful if I set out my situation. My OH will be retiring (next April and we should be able to do a few more trips, mainly Europe and USA. We usually travel Economy or Premium Economy, but I realise that with a bit of investment and planning I could probably reach the 600 points required for Silver status. I am not obsessed about this but I think a few perks would be nice. We live near London, and generally travel as a couple, and don’t really have the desire to make multiple connecting flights or set off on long solo trips with the aim of collecting points, although the odd short duration trip might be possible. So I have been trying to see how I could modify this year’s plans with the aim of achieving 600 points without breaking the bank.

So here’s what I am thinking. I will start with 20/30 points from previous trips. I am thinking of a BA 5 day holiday to Rhodes in October in CE which with double points gets us 360 points each. This would cost about £800 more than if we travelled Economy. We usually do a short trip to Brussels or Amsterdam after Christmas. If we did this in CE this would bring us 80 points each for small extra cost, say £200/300. In the February half term would do another BA 5 day holiday, but probably short haul e.g. Seville, Malaga or Valencia. This would give us 160 points each for, say, £600 over the cost of Economy. So that would get us both within touching distance of 600 points for an additional outlay, over what we would probably spend anyway, of £1600. We might need one other cheap flight each to get us over the line.

My question is, does this seem like a sensible approach? Am I missing something that would get us to the target quicker or cheaper, given the constraint of not wishing to spend days just flying for the sake of it. Would it make more sense just to stump the cash for lounges and seat selection on a pay as we go basis.

I realise that we will be getting to the target very late in the year and will only get the Silver benefit for about a year, but there isn’t much I can do about that. Hopefully we can front load our travel plans after April next year.