Think it’s been discussed on here before, but has anyone got one? If so which one? How much do you spend on it and much do you realistically have to spend to get some decent air miles that you can actually put to use somewhere?
Yes. To be honest, it’s relatively difficult through “normal” spending to rack up a good amount. I managed to buy a lot of kit for a house renovation on the British Airways AmEx card which got the family to Hawaii but the weekly Tesco’s shop will hardly put a dent in it. You are better served rinsing the sign up bonuses to generate miles. It’s worthwhile reading the Head For Points website regarding strategies, lots of good information on there.
When you say ‘a lot’ what figure do you mean? We may be potentially have the option to spend a sum which I believe may benefit us with some points/miles so was just seeing if anyone had any experience. I’ve been reading Barclaycard do Avios miles so a might give them a ring
I've got an American express one pal. With that one I get Amex points which I can also transfer to virgin points. Credit Card cost 180 quid a year but 1st year free and it had an offer that if you spent 3k in 1st 3 months it gave me 30k bonus points so I used it to pay for a holiday which I paid straight off. I use it for big spends and monthly food shops which then I just pay it straight off. Ivd got 34k points at min . That one seems to be a decent one. Also as well I get 4 airport lounges free a year which came in useful when we went on holiday
The best thing to do is take out the BA Amex card. £10k spend gets you a Companion Voucher (2-4-1 tickets) and the signup bonus will get you part of the way there for business class seats or all of the way there for lower class cabins. Requirement goes up to £15k in October so not as valuable. Also Avios tickets often go quickly so useful to know where you want to go a year in advance.
I've been using the Virgin Atlantic one for several years, primarily as the flights I want to use are to the USA. 50,000 points is typically the requirement for a USA return flight. I've cashed in 200,000 for a family holiday to the USA this year, and did similar in 2019. I've also had a solo Upper Class return trip to Vegas previously when they were on offer for 100k miles at the time. Availability is generally good on Virgin flights. I've never had an issue finding them to book. In most cases your search for the cash price, and there's a button to switch the price to using points, or a combination of both. You will always have to pay cash for the tax element of the tickets, so they're never an entirely cash-free transaction, even if shown as 'points only'. The main thing is to find the rewards that best fit your intended usage. Virgin makes sense for me, but Avios might be more useful to others. Also, look at other types of reward card, such as cashback ones to see if they potentially offer you more value. With flight cards, you're essentially limiting yourself to using them for flights, or travel-related stuff such as hotels (which are less value when redeemed, compared to flight tickets). As others have said, take advantage of the bonus offers at sign-up, as this will likely give a big chunk of miles. Beyond that, you can chase miles by diverting as much of your spend as possible onto the cards, as long as you're paying the balance off in full each month. I also used mine for company travel expenses and the odd big purchase, such as purchasing flights and cars. I'd also second the suggestion to use the "Head For Points" website, which is focused on how to maximise value on these types of rewards. There's a huge amount of relevant info on there.
