Capvermell

I thought it would be useful to bring this thread back to life in view of the recent launch by AirMiles of a Facebook page which it has emailed all Air Miles collectors about. This Facebook page at www.facebook.com/airmilesuk is supposed to be there to promote a new idea called "Last Minute" deals where the Facebook page supposedly contains a new "deal" every day. However in what in my opinion is an extremely unethical move Air Miles has also forced its collectors to Like the page before they can see the "Last Minute" deals.

You can therefore imagine the consternation and unhappiness of many Air Miles collectors when they have found that these "Last Minute" deals mainly feature promotions for hotel bookings that normally also require cash or involve minor discounts of 25% on a very unattractive Eurostar ticket conversion rate but never ever seem to involve any discounted flight mileage rates on underbooked BA routes.

However what this page has revealed above all else is the simmering level of anger amongst most long term Air Miles collectors that Air Miles has unacceptably poor levels of availability on many routes (Australia, NZ and most of the Mediterranean in particular) and yet despite this goes out of its way to make it even harder to book than it needs to be by denying Air Miles collectors the right to book flights One Way as BA Miles collectors are still entitled to do. This means that even if you can find a flight One Way to say Perth and then back from Adelaide that Air Miles will not allow you to book it. Equally infuriating is that Air Miles will not allow you to have a stopover in Singapore or Bangkok on a flight to Australia or NZ even though travelling for 24 hours in Economy class without break is against all good medical advice in terms of avoiding DVT and other circulatory related ailments.

Despite the large amount of negative feedback from collectors about the Air Miles scheme on this page (many of these negative feelings towards Air Miles have been generated by what collectors see as the unethical previous moves to wipe out dormant accounts and now to also abolish its own Air Miles paper notes currency as of 1st November) we have not so far seen any director of The Mileage Company prepared to offered a public response on the issue of One Way Flights or stopovers (which there does not seem to be any justification for preventing Air Miles customers from booking) on its Facebook page.

I personally have collected a current total of around 12,000 of these Air Miles over 20 years but have only ever made two short haul redemptions to Europe many years ago, both before the one way flight booking prohibition commenced. Our family owns an apartment in Mallorca but as BA Flyer availability from LCY to PMI is very limited the only way to ever be able to get any value out of Air Miles would be if you could at least book a One Way with Air Miles even if you have to make your return on Rynair, Easyjet, Thomson or Monarch.

It seems to me that the widespread level of customer anger about the prohibition on One Way or Stopover redemptions by Air Miles needs to be listened to by The Mileage Company as its collectors are increasingly unhappy about being treated as third class citizens compared to collectors of BA Miles.

Raffles

They are not quite 3rd class - in general, AM availability is better than with BA Miles. This is because AM will often give you revenue seats as well as award seats, hence the reason you sometimes get miles and TP's back.

(In fact, I'm even tempted to buy some AM's in the '30% extra' April sale for use on Paris / Amsterdam runs, as you are basically getting the flights for £88 all-in with excellent availability).

I don't know why you'd use AM for collecting for long-haul though. It only makes sense compared to BA Miles for short-haul (and preferably short-notice) economy redemptions and is very poor in terms of miles cost for long-haul and F/J surcharges.

Capvermell

Surely not when you can get a ticket on the Eurostar for less and also tickets with Easyjet for the same price and you will be doing all of that with flexible cash and not with inflexible locked up Air Miles. £88 return to Paris is not what I would call a cheap flight as I can get a cheap flight to the Med for that with Thomson etc.

Presumably because I have only collected my Air Miles in the past through buying Shell petrol or using my NatWest credit card and didn't do a job where my company buys me flights in Club class that accrues me lots of BA Miles for personal use (arguably this is also highly unethical as it evades taxation as form of remuneration).

And while its true and easy to say that short haul is the theoretical best use of Air Miles the fact is that if I want to go the North of England or Scotland for leisure I usually drive (as car hire there is expensive) and I have been to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam enough times to have no further interest in visiting those places. Also many of the 1,500 Air Miles return destinations in Europe have very poor availability during the summer months and there are a lot of cheap cash fare alternatives with other airlines.

I would also challenge your claim that Air Miles availability is often better than BA Miles as I checked this out in detail for LCY to PMI for every departure date in the last summer season and there was around 150% +more seats availability to a BA Miles collector on this route than there was for Air Miles customers.

It was of course totally inexcusable that BA used the introduction of World Traveller as an excuse for increasing the conversion cost of Air Miles for Club and First Class tickets by 50% and 33% respectively.

Raffles

Between the LHR and Paris lounges, I can do £88 of free food, drink, newspapers and magazines

And isn't £88 almost the easyJet credit card booking charge now?!

Roger

I had a look at the Facebook page - not an experience I plan to repeat very often - and came across this comment:Without counting, it seems that a huge proportion of posts there were made by one person with similar complaints to those made above.

Certainly programmes evolve, and all have T+Cs which we accept if we want to use them. The potentially short shelf life of Airmiles apart, I think Airmiles compares well with other programmes - not a great deal better nor a great deal worse.

Basing comments on award availability purely on the LCY-PMI route is a little short sighted. This route is op CityFlyer and AFAIK Cityflyer flights are not generally available for Airmiles redemptions. Certainly that's the case for LCY-ZRH, though there is often availability on LX. And of course on BA and LX from LHR.

Airmiles may not be right for everybody but are fine by me.

Raffles

And there is your answer to the one-way issue. BA does not fly to Adelaide or Perth, your flights would be on other airlines WHERE AIR MILES HAS TO PAY CASH FOR THE TICKET.

Have you tried to book a one-way long-haul? Most airlines, including BA, do not allow it unless you buy a fully flexible ticket.

Even if one-way redemptions were brought in, they would only ever be for BA.

Capvermell

I think the one person you mention has also been supported by many other Facebook members making the same points. Air Miles has not exactly shown that it has heaps of happy customers or had lots of praise heaped on it through this page. It has also annoyed most long term Air Miles collectors by requiring them to "Like" the page just to view it. Most other Facebook pages I have ever viewed do not impose such a requirement.

Some of the AirMiles offers on that page such as a measly 250 Air Miles possible prize if you start following the company on Twitter seem little more than an insult. Also the so called Last Minute daily offers are by and large merely re-promotions of offers that Air Miles is already running

From your relatively smug attitude regarding the way "programmes evolve" I would assume that you collect the majority of your miles on the BA Miles scheme where collectors have not had their right to book one way flights taken away from them.

Capvermell

I should have given one ways from LHR to Sydney and from Auckland to LHR as a better example of my point since you can fly those two routes with BA and then surface transit between Sydney and Auckland under your own steam.

Surely it is high time that these restrictive practices were swept away in the fashion that has already happened in Europe.

I could live with that restriction provided that it included BA City Flyer which BA markets in every possible way as being an integral part of their flight operations.

Raffles

BA doesn't fly to Auckland, or indeed anywhere in Oz/NZ except Sydney.

(And you can't blame them. Yields are pathetically low (the bulk of J pax are on cheap £3k tourist tickets, whilst on, say, LHR-JFK most J pax are on £5k flex tickets for a flight that is 25% of the distance.) Even Y tickets are disturbingly cheap on a pence per mile basis compared with almost anywhere else BA flies.)

Capvermell

Presumably fares are that low because of decent competition on the route unlike North America where there seems to have been near cartel like behaviour to ramp up all fares to at least £429 return. Clearly absurdly high government taxes across the Atlantic have also not helped.

Also when the Air Miles scheme can offer me flights on Monarch and FlyBe (both of whom sell their flights on a One Way basis) then what is the problem with them having a deal with Quantas, who they already have existing strategic alliances with? If Air Miles can fill up seats on aircraft where the seats would otherwise have flown empty and the airline still gets some money from Air Miles then surely it is still a viable proposition. In fact when I looked previously at travelling to Australia with Air Miles I was offered seats on Virgin so clearly Air Miles works with a wider range of airlines than BA. Its possibly a reciprocal thing surely where if a BA mileage customer travels on a Virgin flight then a Virgin mileage customer can travel on a BA flight.

Also if BA Miles customers can take one way flights regardless of the pernicious operating rules for cash fares of the long haul club and also used to offer Air Miles customers the same privilege then why does this not still happen now? Not allowing Air Miles collectors to stopover on BA routes in the Far East is curmudgeonly and mean spirited in the extreme.

Roger

Smug? Moi? I learnt a long time ago never to assume around these parts. As it happens, BA Miles currently rank no 4 in my personal league. Oh, there I go, being relatively smug again.

the stig

If only

mike turnbull

I'm struggling to find a seperate 'AirMiles' forum on this site, which would be useful I think, in view of all the changes upcoming ?

Palmer

That's because it was hidden on page 2 (almost half way down the page..!)

Airmiles changes [separate discussion from BAEC changes]

Palmer

mike turnbull

Thanks !