Airmiles. Waste of time?

[WhyTwo]

fking Airmiles, waste of time. Never been able to spend the bd things! I’ve got loads of BMI, BA, Virgin and United airmiles and have never been able to spend any of them either for an upgrade or a free flight.

I even had a free flight voucher for United that I never managed to bly spend due to their stupid must fly via Katman fg do at 5am on the 3 Tuesday after lent providing it’s not a fg leap year and providing you stay in some shy over priced back water hotel for 17 nights and buy a £40 conti fg nental breakfast before 6am every day ! Load of se! To many conditions and fg restrictions and not enough availability. Cck Piss airmiles!

I guess they make it so much of a ball ache that you just don't bother and that works, I've just booked my flight and paid for it so I can go when and where I actually want to go

Cue the "Oh I always book my travel 2 years in advance and always manage to spend my airmiles to get free flights" replies. Yes thank you but I'm just not that organised and would expect a month to be enough fg notice

[HellDiver]

You're doing it wrong. They work fine here.

[steveo3002]

seem a bit poo to me..ive got some virgina atlantic miles , the upgradable flights are nearly the price of the one you to upgrade to

[aclivity]

I gave up trying to spend them on flights. Instead I convert them into theme park tickets and make a day to Legoland or Alton Towers affordable (as opposed to OMFG HOW MUCH!).

[WhyTwo]

aclivity said:

I gave up trying to spend them on flights. Instead I convert them into theme park tickets and make a day to Legoland or Alton Towers affordable (as opposed to OMFG HOW MUCH!).

I like the sound of that. Thanks for the tip

[Famous Graham]

Never had any problem chopping in BMI points for flights.

Need to be booked at least 10 days or so beforehand, mind.

[GT03ROB]

Not a problem done :

Concorde return to NY, Budapest, Paris, Milan, Houston & NY again last summer in Club

[Puggit]

Famous Graham said:

Never had any problem chopping in BMI points for flights.

Need to be booked at least 10 days or so beforehand, mind.

It's p!ss easy to redeem them on LHR-EDI flights.

It's when you want to go somewhere else fancy that it gets tricky.

To the OP - if you want some help redeeming the bmi miles, then drop me a PM and I'll help you out

(redeemed LHR-JNB-MRU-JNB-FRA-LHR in business/first in November )

[anonymous-user]

I've used them for 3 round trips to the USA plus a number of european flights, never had a problem.

[Iain328]

Using United Miles to get flights to the States is getting more & more difficult if you need to travel during School hols.

[phumy]

I fly Thai air business class regularly and acrue loads of miles then use them when i can buy an economy seat and upgrade back to business, saves me few bob....

[tvrolet]

I've had no problems redeeming BA miles for decent dates/destinations including Vancouver & Denver for skiing, plus some euro-jaunts. Continental miles have got me to Vegas a few times on or near the dates I wanted, and probably will do so again this summer. Closer to home, I've had quite a few flights off FlyBE...I seem to collect their miles at an alarming rate! Not redeemed any of my BMI miles for a while, but not expecting too much in the way of a problem when I do - I was plotting using them on another US ski trip this year and put my dates in and they came up available. You just have to book quite a few months ahead and be prepared to be a little flexible on dates.

[CR0X]

I have Qantas air miles and between the Chairman and I, we do a fair bit of travelling. His is Platinum I think, and I am only at Gold, but at least I get lounge access.

He is always redeeming his airmiles, and yes it isn't as and when he wants to fly but has to look at different dates.

[Tuscan Chick]

WhyTwo said:

fking Airmiles, waste of time. Never been able to spend the bd things! I’ve got loads of BMI, BA, Virgin and United airmiles and have never been able to spend any of them either for an upgrade or a free flight.

I even had a free flight voucher for United that I never managed to bly spend due to their stupid must fly via Katman fg do at 5am on the 3 Tuesday after lent providing it’s not a fg leap year and providing you stay in some shy over priced back water hotel for 17 nights and buy a £40 conti fg nental breakfast before 6am every day ! Load of se! To many conditions and fg restrictions and not enough availability. Cck Piss airmiles!

I guess they make it so much of a ball ache that you just don't bother and that works, I've just booked my flight and paid for it so I can go when and where I actually want to go

Cue the "Oh I always book my travel 2 years in advance and always manage to spend my airmiles to get free flights" replies. Yes thank you but I'm just not that organised and would expect a month to be enough fg notice

Don't be a berk, just get organised.

[SimonV8ster]

But don't you have topay for the taxes and other stuff ? When I've looked at European flights it seemed to equate to another 60-70 quid so I can buy the flight through a cheap airline anyway ?

[Dakkon]

Some are quick to dismiss the OP, but using points for flights can still be expensive once taxes etc are added on compared to just paying for the flight.

[anonymous-user]

SimonV8ster said:

But don't you have topay for the taxes and other stuff ? When I've looked at European flights it seemed to equate to another 60-70 quid so I can buy the flight through a cheap airline anyway ?

The taxes are the same whether you buy a ticket from Ryan Air or BA. The £10 ticket you see advertised does not include the taxes.

[Iain328]

Tuscan Chick said:

WhyTwo said:

fking Airmiles, waste of time. Never been able to spend the bd things! I’ve got loads of BMI, BA, Virgin and United airmiles and have never been able to spend any of them either for an upgrade or a free flight.

I even had a free flight voucher for United that I never managed to bly spend due to their stupid must fly via Katman fg do at 5am on the 3 Tuesday after lent providing it’s not a fg leap year and providing you stay in some shy over priced back water hotel for 17 nights and buy a £40 conti fg nental breakfast before 6am every day ! Load of se! To many conditions and fg restrictions and not enough availability. Cck Piss airmiles!

I guess they make it so much of a ball ache that you just don't bother and that works, I've just booked my flight and paid for it so I can go when and where I actually want to go

Cue the "Oh I always book my travel 2 years in advance and always manage to spend my airmiles to get free flights" replies. Yes thank you but I'm just not that organised and would expect a month to be enough fg notice

Don't be a berk, just get organised.

AFAIK Airline schedules are published 330 days (i.e. 11 months) in advance. If you want mileage tickets (certainly on United) over say Easter or Xmas - or even in August, my experience is that you better be booking them pretty close to 11 months in advance.

I have tickets for April booked last September - and I couldn't get even one ticket (let alone 3) on the dates I actually wanted. I did get tickets, but the dates are not ideal at all. Obviously there were still plenty of seats available on the planes we wanted to go on - but they won't release them to mileage customers once the designated (tiny) number of mileage ticket seats have been taken.

United then have a racket going in respect of booking charges and charges to change tickets - if you are an infrequent/leisure traveller (especially with kids *& therefore travel date restrictions) its become pretty questionable whether its worth trying to stick with one Airline to accumulate mileage.

Edited by Iain328 on Friday 15th January 12:31

[Size Nine Elm]

Tried using BA miles on a part-cash, part miles fare. The part-cash bit was more than just paying for the flight in the first place.

The old Air Miles used to be OK when it started, had quite a few free flights, but with the taxes/fees etc and the restrictions on the flights you can choose it does seem to be hardly worth it.

[shakotan]

steveo3002 said:

seem a bit poo to me..ive got some virgina atlantic miles , the upgradable flights are nearly the price of the one you to upgrade to

I use Virgin miles all the time. The best option is to book flights as "miles plus money". You only spend a couple of throusand miles, but can get around 30% off the flight.

I've done this LOADS of times.

The only downer is that they've doubled the amount of miles you need for a 'miles only' flight.