There are lots of easy ways to rack up miles. I have often said that anyone can rack up 100,000 BA Miles per year with minimal flying if they are willing to put in a bit of effort and alter their purchasing habits a bit.

For example .... (and these are things you can do TODAY):

1. Look in the Tesco thread and switch your gas + electricity to Powergen. That's 2000 CC points (4,800 BA Miles) for a start. In six months time, dump Powergen and move to BA's partner Southern Energy (2,000 BA Miles sign-up bonus).

2. Move your bank account to NatWest Primeline. You get 10,000 BA Miles for signing up - see the Partners section of the Executive Club section of ba.com for info. (This offer in theory ended on 31/12 but tends to be renewed continually.)

3. Start doing grocery shopping using Tesco Grocery home delivery and use the codes in the Tesco thread. You should be able to get 1,000 CC bonuses on each shop (2,400 BA Miles). There are also regular promos on wine etc.

4. Join all the free Tesco clubs - see Post 1 of the Tesco thread. These come with extra point vouchers. Over a year, you should get at least 2,000 points (4,800 miles)-worth of bonus points coupons with the clubs and on your clubcard statements.

5. Keep an eye on the Tesco thread for 'cost free' bonus miles - eg in the Autumn you could move to Tesco Home Phone for 2,000 bonus points (4,800 BA Miles)

6. Look up an old thread called 'Amex and BA' and get yourself the Travellers Cheque Card. This can get you around 10,000 BA Miles for around 0.5p each if used correctly, as well as speeding up your Amex voucher.

7. Get the free Priority Club Visa card (see Post 1 of the Tesco thread for details). This is worth 2,500 BA Miles as a sign-up bonus.

8. Divert as much of your spend to your credit card as possible. Did you know about half of the local authorities will take plastic for council tax if you ask? Or that BT accepts plastic for phone bills if you pay online (they don't tell you this on your bill)?

9. Arrange weekends away around BA's promotions. You can get a relatively easy 12,000 BA Miles with the current ba.com/oneworldbonus promotion.

10. If you travel with your job, divert your hotel stays, car hires etc to places that will reward you with miles

11. The promo for 5,000 BA Miles for opening a BA Amex account may still be going - do a search and try to find the link

HOWEVER ... after saying all that, I agree with the others here. Using miles for free WT tickets to NZ is not worth it!! Those same 100,000 BA Miles, when used with an Amex voucher, will get you two business class tickets to San Francisco, South Africa, Mexico, the Caribbean etc. This is a FAR better use of miles.

I would bite the bullet and pay cash for the NZ tickets - especially as you will have to pay for the cost of a Sydney to NZ flight anyway if you use BA Miles. You will also save yourself a massive amount of hassle trying to get seats on BA, as the kangaroo route is difficult to redeem with. At the end of the day, London to Oz / NZ is one of the most competitive routes in the world and fare are very low (relative to distance travelled) if you pay cash.

Let us know which carrier you plan to use and we may be able to work out a good way of using the mileage you'll get from the ticket. Expedia has Cathay flights for around £650 each which will get you BA Miles, or Thai flights for about the same which will get Star Alliance credit - in which case we'll explain why a BMI frequent flier account is the way to go!