NickPowell77

All,

I need to get hold of 20k airmiles in the next few days in order to book a mileage redemption flight on my 241. Availability is running ourt quickly and I'm keen to get it booked asap.

What is the quickest and cheapest way in getting miles onto my account

Best Regards
Nick

pauldb

Transfer hotel points or Tesco points. If that's out of the question, buy them for £350 (15k for you, and 5k someone else in your HH account), or move someone with 20k miles into your household.

Raffles

At a guess ... create a household account with you and the person who will be travelling with you on the 2-4-1. If this person does not have a BAEC account you can sign them up using the current Starwood promo which dispenses with the qualiflying flight rule.

You buy 15k miles (the max allowed). Your partner buys 5k miles. All done.

Don't forget that you can transfer any Priority Club / Starwood / Marriott points over as well as long as you meet the minimum thresholds. With Starwood or PC you can buy a few points if necessary to get you to the transfer threshold.

BAGoldBoy

You can buy up to 15,000 BA miles a year for £255 at ba.com - I knew there was something else you could at ba.com apart from not buy tickets

Additionally another BAEX member can buy 5,000BA miles for you for £95 - there's plenty of rich people here - I am sure someone will volunteer

Damn - Raffles beat me to it

aristoph

I thought inviting someone into a household account with an existing member also dispensed with the flight qualifying rule?

NickPowell77

Thanks for the info...

I've already got a household account with my wife and we have 81,011 miles between us + I've just put about £3.5k on my BA Amex card - the points should hit on the 16th July.

I think I will take the risk and wait until mid July...

So, if I am not in so much of a hurry - any ideas on how I could get hold of 15k miles for less than £255?

Cheers,
Nick

pauldb

Buy a fully-flex BA ticket for £5k on your BA Amex. Cancel it once you've earn 15k miles by other means. If, for example, you earn 3k miles in the following month, you can cancel it and book a £4k ticket and so on, hence never actually having to pay Amex for it.

Raffles

The quickest way would be to do six lots of Tesco online shopping with the 1,000 bonus points per order (a bit tricky, given we don't have 6 unique codes at the moment!). However, these won't hit until the next Tesco points run in 2 months.

You could try getting six new clubcards instore, and doing a £50 shop on each (buy some video games to resell on ebay, or 2 bottles of Moet) using the 1 good code we have. You should get the points six times over, and can probably merge the accounts before the points post.

6 £50 shops will cost £300 and get you 6,000 Tesco = 14,400 BA Miles. Miles will post in 2 months with the next Tesco run. Obviously this costs more than £255 but you will get at least £150-200 back if you buy video games to resell. Or, alternatively, you'll have £300 of champagne in your fridge!

SLF

Why are people determined to kill off all the golden geese?

Raffles

I really don't see the problem with this. It is a purely technical issue. BA doesn't lose out, as you are booking a seat so far in advance there is zero chance of anyone else wanting it now. Amex doesn't lose out, because you will need to spend on the card later to repay the loan (and it is only a loan) of miles.

Another thought, by the way - if you never got an Amex Travellers Cheque Card, you can raise 4,500 miles quickly by putting £3000 on one of these. See post 1 in the 'Amex and BA' thread.

aristoph

I read SLF's comment to mean that it is best not to talk about these "loopholes" too openly lest too many people exploit them and BA kills the golden goose? If he meant that this loophole itself risks killing the golden goose of the 2-4-1 then I think he is wrong and agree with you.

quitecontrary

You still get a 5000 mile bonus for taking out a BA Amex PP card so if you and your wife don't already have these that could be 10000 miles but you will have to pay £120 each annual fee which is reduced to £30 if you have blue (or red?) Amex. But probably the easiest would be the Amex TCC.

jchand

Beyond me mate.

SLF

It will cost BA something, as they are generating a PNR, placing a reservation, charging the fare through to Amex, taking up storage, cancelling/refunding the booking, crediting it back to Amex etc. Amex are presumably paying BA for the miles, effectively providing an interest free loan for whatever length of time this is spun out for etc.

How do you know that full-fare interest in an F seat 11 months out doesn't cause the res system to lock down award availability for that flight, thus preventing someone redeeming miles?

BA & Amex could well take the viewpoint that this is blatant abuse, and make changes so that (e.g.) points only post after flights are taken. This would mess things up for everyone in a far bigger way...

etc.

aristoph

All of which will be more than offset by the interest BA earns on holding your £15k, even if it is for just a month or so. If it isn't then BA has bigger problems than this because a) its cost structure for the simple act of e-ticketing and refunding is seriously out of kilter and b) its treasury department should clearly be sacked!