Pudding Guy

Much to the probable annoyance of Jaguar dealerships across the US, I thought I’d bring a very good recent offer from British Airways to this broader audience. It’s certainly the easiest miles I’ve earned in 2003 thus far.

The offer: Test drive a Jaguar X-Type and receive 10,000 Executive Club miles. The promotion was apparently sent out to via e-mail to all North American Executive Club members on February 5, and was quickly posted in the British Airways forum by Pacha. See http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum15/HTML/003177.html

This was not a targeted promotion, so all North American Executive Club members should be eligible.

The step-by-step:

1. Sign up for a British Airways Executive Club account (if you don’t already have one). Here’s the link: http://www.britishairways.com/travel/enrol/public/en_us

2. Print out the Jaguar test-drive forms found at: http://www.keycast.com/keycast/jagua...a/frameset.htm

3. Find your nearest Jaguar dealer, forms completed except for the dealer info. Explain your intentions to the salesperson. This might save both of you some time and avoid the test drive, if you’re not in the market for a new X-Type. Some have been required to take a test drive before the dealer would complete the form. In other cases, this wasn’t necessary and the whole process took less than 5 minutes. YMMV.

4. Mail in the form and wait for your miles to post.

What can you do with 10,000 EC miles? Not too much, if you don’t already have EC miles or plan to be an active participant. However, a nice feature of the EC program may help. British Airways has provisions for “household” accounts, wherein accounts from up to 4 persons at the same address can share miles for claiming awards. The application for joining accounts can be found at: http://www.britishairways.com/travel...s/public/en_us

Thus, the promotion can yield 40,000 miles for a single award in a single household if all are EC members who can take a test drive. And 40,000 miles is sufficient for a free ticket from the US to Europe, among other awards. Given another special offer in the same newsletter, 20,000 miles is currently enough for a free roundtrip in the states on Alaska Airlines. The miles will supposedly post 6-8 weeks after March 31, which would be some time between May 12 and 26.

Bottom line: Drive a jag, fly to Europe for free.

Let the FlyerTalk cycle of elation, abuse, worrying, gloating, paranoia, moralizing, pain, and pleasure begin!

[This message has been edited by Pudding Guy (edited 02-10-2003).]

jmartin

I'm not in the market for a new Jaguar, and I'm only interested because of the miles -- but if you're going to the dealership anyway, how could you pass up the opportunity to drive it?

I'm definitely driving one to qualify - the dealership here in Tulsa is a few yards from a nearly deserted new freeway around the south side of the Tulsa metro area ... It's so wide and long and straight - and traffic is so sparse - it's kind of like a RACEWAY

bpauker

Already working on doing this twice.

landspeed

10,000 miles will get you a r/t from the UK to cities in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, France, Switzerland and even Luxembourg

https://www.britishairways.com/execc...s/zone12.shtml

Plus, I received 5,000 magic points when I enrolled in BAEC NA for being a "valued international business traveler." YMMV.

fallinasleep

yeah, but don't you intend/propose to commit identity fraud in order to "do this twice"?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum15/HTML/003177.html

tazi

I only have one other household person to sign up! Perhaps my cat as well???

Thanks for the info!

dhacker

papa3 posted this promo (without the useful step-by-step guide or the household account information) in Buzz three days ago:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/008305.html

but that thread was locked to consolidate ongoing discussion in the BA forum:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum15/HTML/003177.html

Posting it here and spelling out the steps helps more people, IMHO, but it is always best to keep the moderators happy

bpauker

Yep, and I'm not making a secret out of it. If I lose the miles, it's no big deal. If I succeed, I get a couple of free trips.

But I did decide not to co-mingle my real account in Europe with this promotion.

[This message has been edited by bpauker (edited 02-10-2003).]

henwood

Can BA miles be transfered to Hilton?

gleff

Nope.

http://www.hilton.com/en/hhonors/rew...change_1.jhtml

But transfers can be done with Diners Club.

[This message has been edited by gleff (edited 02-10-2003).]

BigLar

Hey! Great deal! My local Jag dealer is only a couple of miles from my house.

I figured I'd enroll my wife and two daughters in EC and go for the full 40K. My RT on the Concorde is getting that much closer!

However: the drive-a-jag promo ends on Feb 25, and according to BA it may take 3-4 weeks to get EC numbers for the rest of the family. Can they take the drive now and fill in the numbers later?

Help!

Pudding Guy

Adults can get EC numbers online, but if you want to enroll family members that are under-18, you have to complete the household form and then BA will assign them EC numbers. When I did this a while back, I put a note on the form, and someone from BA called me back with the new EC account numbers--and it was only a matter of days when they did so.

In any case, I don't think that you need to have the account numbers filled out at the time of the test drive. You should be able to fill them in later, and get the completed forms in the mail by 3/31.

On a related note, I suspect that Jaguar dealers might not allow test drives for persons under 18, though I didn't research this. Cats and fictional persons would also be questionable.

caseynshan

Thanks Guys,
My wife has always wanted to go to Ireland and we are much closer to being able to afford the flight to London than Ireland.

Question - Any bonuses currently for signing up for BA???

caseynshan

One more question...
Searched the BA forum but no luck..
it looks like it is better to sing up individually and then get the household account setup afterwards...

johnep1

The only difference would be when you find out what the BA EC numbers are. If you set up the household account before you get individual BA accounts, then you will need to wait until BA processed your membership. The best thing would be to get each individual account set up online and then fax the form to BA to set up the household account. This way, you will know your number from the start.

However, if you let BA set up the household account and assign numbers at the same time, each account holder that did not sign up online will receive an offer for 1000 miles to update their email address.