where2travel

Unfortunately, that nice little points-earner has ended now (unless you find any stores with the shelf-edge label showing the 800 bonus points and get Customer Services to add them on manually for you).

malkie

Just wanted to post thanks for all of the helpful point collecting advice, and in particular introducing me to PTS forums.

I've grabbed nearly 10k points this quarter, which is a crazy amount (for me), but mostly with free recycling and a few bottles of wine

By my maths thats nearly 25k BA Miles, which is nearly enough for a MFU from WTP to CW on a north america trip.

However, as explained previously it's going towards two (me and Mrs Malkie) MFUs from WTP to CW from London to Beijing next year (I'm currently only 7k BA miles short of the 80k target!)

It occured to me that if I'm heading to Beijing on holiday I could also pull in a quick hop from Beijing to Tokyo for a couple of days as I've never been to Japan. (It's a 3.5hr flight apparently).

Anyone got any experience on this route? United seem to be offering decent "business" class flights, and it's only 3.5hours, so it can't be too bad - right? I'm not sure what the oneworld options are for direct flights ?

Raffles

ANA and Air China do it direct, as does Asiana via Seoul - so BMI miles are an option as these are all Star Alliance carriers. The BMI Amex gets you 24,000 miles for signing up (£60 fee) and a one-way in Business on ANA or Asiana would be 11,250 miles + £75 + taxes each. Or get the free BMI Amex with 20,000 miles and spend £1,250 on it to earn the extra 2,500 miles.

You may as well fly back to London from Tokyo, no point going back to China (and thus needing another visa potentially).

I really like Tokyo, well worth a visit. If you've got 4-5 days, you could also take the bullet train down to Kyoto which is lovely.

jrehfeldt

terrible that this program has begun to fall so short. Used to be able to generate some great miles at the tesco.

malkie

All very valid points, but I'm more likely just to pay for the flight to Tokyo rather than start another FF programme. I thought that if I used a oneworld partner I could earn a few extra miles too. I'm also considering an internal flight in China to see more of the country - it's been suggested to fly somewhere and take one of the comfortable sleeper trains back to Beijing.

Do MFUs work easily for a non-return flight ? ie out to Beijing, but back from Tokyo on a single ticket ? Or, will I need to book two singles and MFU each leg?

I've definitely done that before - a recent trip of mine was LHR-PHL then IAD-LHR on a single ticket, but that was just a straight CW booking rather than an MFU.

where2travel

Are you sure? Fair enough some of the crazy days are in the past (Beef in gravy, Johnson's talc, TV aerials, nappies....) but I think the past couple of months have offered more points than most people ever expected.

The downside for me at the moment is that I can never get online codes to work on my accounts (and they aren't as good as they used to be - there was a time when 1,000 points on a £50 spend was freely available). The upside is that the points have been offered on things I will actually buy to use myself.

irmster

I agree -had my best Tesco points period for a while. There are still some good offers around.

Gumbieben

Japan Airlines have a couple of direct flights per day and are OneWorld... or the long way round with a stop in HKG on CX would also get points (but probably not worth the inconvenience).

pauldb

Yes an open-jaw can be MFU'd.

If you are happy to play the Tesco game, you really should consider Raffles' suggestion. The same free and easy miles will get you a more complicated routing too, e.g. Xian-Shanghai(stop)-Tokyo for even better value.

Raffles

Not sure how much you value your time at, but it will take less than 10 minutes to open a BMI Diamond Club account and then apply for the BMI Amex. Add in another 5 minutes to activate the card when you receive it, and perhaps another 10 minutes over the following weeks to check your account to see if the 20,000 miles have turned up. Perhaps another 10 minutes if you then decide to cancel the card so you cut it up and post it back.

We're talking an hour of your life max.

A one-way J ticket from Beijing to Narita on United (United!) runs at £710 + £40 taxes, so £1440 + £80 for a couple. The BMI credit card route I outlined will cost you £75 per person plus the taxes. United is *A so of course you could use them if you really wanted to, although ANA has more options and almost certainly better seats and service.

I reckon you're therefore saving £1365 for an hour of your time.

malkie

When you break it up like that it seems extremely straight forward!

via http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/src/html/d...pendmiles.html

Going Zone8 to Zone8 (ie Beijing to Tokyo)
I've got 45,000 miles for J return, or 22,500 miles + £150
Meaning 22,500 miles for J single, or 11,250 miles + £75 (just as you stated)

Do you have any opinion on frequency of seat availability? I know BA have the extremely useful reward seat availability tool, does BMI (ANA) have the same?

We'll be flexible on exact dates, and will be booking in advance to maximise opportunity.

(p.s. sorry for dragging the Tesco thread offtopic)

irmster

suggest you venture over to the BMI board where there is a very good sticky on award booking and how to check availability etc.

Raffles

You can check availability across most *A partners (not Air China, slightly annoyingly) via the ANA website. Details, as irmster says, in the BMI sticky.

Randomly checking next June, there are at least 2 J seats showing every day I checked on at least one of the two the direct ANA services, as well as the Asiana via Seoul options.

If you REALLY can't be bothered with the BMI credit card, then simply open a BMI account and BUY the 10,250 miles you need (you get 1k for opening the account) and then instantly redeem them! The all-in cost will still be a fraction of the cost of buying a ticket for cash - 11,000 miles is £132, with no handling fee up to 31 August. The total cost would therefore be £132 to buy the miles plus £75 cash plus £40 taxes, so under £250 all-in for what is effectively a cancellable, changeable and refundable ticket.

malkie

cheers for the info - I had been browsing the BMI forum

Slightly philosophical question, but why doesn't everyone just do that? Seems grossly cheaper to buy miles and redeem them instantly than buying the whole flight for cash.

edit

I'd need to purchase 21,500k miles (assuming the 1k welcome bonus) - can I do that in one go? (or like BA is it 19k per year). If so then I could buy miles across two calendar years (Dec09 and Jan10), and still be quids in.

Sorry, I do appreciate I'm asking this question in the wrong forum!

edit2

or get Mrs Malkie to open her own account and do the same. However, this whole J-class experience to China and Japan is a surprise for Mrs Malkie, as far as she knows she's stuck in a plane in economy for 14 hours back from Tokyo.

Raffles

Purchase cap is 24,000 miles per calendar year.