Some fairly specific advice please - I am trying to work out which credit card would suit our family best.

We spend about £30K-£40K on CC each year.

We are aiming to collect points to redeem for family holidays to places that we couldn't normally afford because of the cost of the flights (CPT, HKT, SIN, MIA, EZE for example) and for some summer trips where we might like to go further than our traditional (car) trip to France - perhaps to Italy, Croatia, Greece etc.

We expect only to be able to afford to redeem for economy flights

Only I fly for work - and that is sporadic. I have no control over who I fly with, but usually fly in business. To give an idea of my flying - this year so far I have done:

LHR-CPT return (Y, family holiday, redemption booking)
LHR-LED return (BA, C, one-way, Y the other, work)
LHR-GRU return (BA, C, work)
LHR-MAD-GRU (IB, C, one-way, work)
GRU-AMS (KLM, Y, one-way, work)
AMS-ODS (KLM, Y, one-way, work)
ODS-VIE-LHR (OS, C, one-way, work)
LHR-MAN return (BA, Y, work)

Currently, I have about:

230,000 bmi miles and silver status
35,000 ba miles and silver status
10,000 airmiles
a few HHonors points and no status
a few Priority club points and no status
a few Starpoints and no status

So - should we:

1. Continue with our bmi Amex and Mastercards
2. Switch to BA Amex and keep the bmi MC for where Amex isn't taken
3. Get an Airmiles MC
4. Get a Priority Club rewards CC or a HHonors CC - could then convert their points to airline miles I think...


My thoughts:

I have always been happy with *A reward availability but have to pay the taxes and charges which are expensive for a family of 5!

I haven't got (and maybe wouldn't get) enough BA miles to go far, and still would have to pay taxes and charges, but there is the 2for1 to think of...

Airmiles seems good only for Y travel, but that is what we are likely to be doing, and includes taxes and charges

Priority Club and HHonors are other options, but I can't work out whether the earning is better or worse once you have converted the points you have earnt into airline miles...

I hope that is enough information for some helpful advice to come back - please ask here or PM me if you want to know anything else I have forgotten to tell you!

Thanks.

Can anyone suggest a different forum which might be better suited to this question? I don't want to waste anyone's time.

Thanks.

Why would you want to convert HHonors points after you've earned them? I've found that HHonors offers pretty good earning and spending opportunities.

If I were you, I would try to consolidate into BMI and HHonors.