Credit cards with airmiles.....

A think this subject may have been touched on before but does anyone use this trip of card? If so who do they use? And is it worth it?

I use mine pretty often but pay the bill each month so I reckon I'd be able to do well with it.

Thanks

 

I use Virgin American Express card. It got me an upgrade to business class last week using miles I'd accrued.

It's worth doing if you fly a lot...

 

Tsb did one.

You got two cards. AMEX for overseas purchases. Mastercard for the uk.

 

Diners Card (SAS)

Use it all the time, even get SAS points when buying things! Soon up to Gold so i can use airport lounges, fast track and business check-in when ever needed!

 

Do you pay a annual fee for the usage of the card? Roughly what do you need to be spending to actually make it worth while?

 

I use the Virgin Atlantic cards (you get an Amex and a Visa on the same account, the Amex earns double points). I use it as a charge card, so pay for as much as I can through the month with it and then pay it off in full.

Well worth it for me. I've got over 200,000 Virgin miles on it at present and did a first class return trip to Vegas last year for 100k miles plus tax (about £450).

I'm sure there's a referral offer on it where both parties get bonus miles, so PM me if interested in signing up.

The one caveat is to ensure you pay it off in full as the interest rate isn't great if you keep a balance on it.

 

I have a British airways card which gives me avios points
A American airlines one
A green amex, we use Amex for hotel bookings alot

Always pay them off in full each month, at the moment i have around 600,000 miles with all those.

 

I got the Virgin Atlantic Black card - which has a £140 annual fee - got about 30,000 miles just for taking it out.

I used it for everything for a year and cancelled before the renewal fee and got a white card - another 10,000 bonus points but half teh miles.

Currently wathcing the black for the bonus to go back up to 30,000 to take one out again.

In just over 2 years with one business class flight on virgin plus the credit card bonus' and spend I've got about 200,000 miles from the credit card spend (about £2500 per month) and various loyalty programs (Texaco and Tesco club card fuel link to the scheme - "shops away" which links to the scheme also has bonus miles from Hotels.com, Debenahms, Argos and a few more - (plus pay on the virgin credit card for double points on the same spend!)

Again - I pay off the credit cards every month otherwise it would be painful.

I've never overpaid on hotels or anything (other than the black card annual fee) just to get the miles -however it has been hard work making sure every milage opportunity comes in.

So 2 years to collect 200,000 miles - enough for a round trip upgrade for all the family from Manchester to orlando ( but I think there are "fees" (wtf) on top.

The flight home usually puts a dampener on the whole holiday so coming home business class (plus how much Virgin decide is not able to be paid by points) will determine whether I made the right choice of credit card two years ago......

That my experience of how much effort I've had to put in and what I should get out of it.

Compare that with cash back on spend card - I think it reasonable to say I'd pocket £1000 over the 2 years by putting as much effort in and exploiting offers, etc.

 

double post shenanigans

 

The element you have to pay by cash is the Tax on the tickets, so nothing to do with Virgin directly.

You do sometimes get an option to use a combination of miles and cash towards a fare, if you don't have enough for a full credit, but the tax will always be payable in cash.

All the various airmile schemes are the same in this regard, as far as I'm aware.