Getting best points value

Discussion in 'Air miles' started by Tcworldwide, Sep 10, 2018.

  1. Tcworldwide

    Tcworldwide New Member

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    I'm struggling to work out how to get the best value from my situation.
    I currently have points in 3 schemes
    • Emirates 1000 (from a work trip)
    • Virgin atlantic ~ 10000 (from a personal holiday)
    • Flying blue ~ 10000 (from a work trip and a holiday)
    I currently travel long haul for work around 2 times a year. Current destinations are Uganda and Kenya. Next year I may need to travel to Vietnam.
    Trips have to be booked through my employers travel agent, and are paid directly by my employer, but I can claim the miles. Same with hotels. I have to travel economy. I generally have to pick the cheapest fare that is at sensible times, if I book something much more expensive than cheaper options without good reason (it will earn me points is not a valid reason) then I'll get in trouble. I can at least pay expenses (meals etc) on my amex card and claim back.

    My girlfriend and I go on maybe one to zero long haul holidays a year, and one or two short haul.

    I've just signed up for the Amex preferred gold card. I currently spend around £10k a year on my visa so will probably fall short of the £15k bonus unfortunately.

    I'm not sure which scheme I should target to build points in (both from amex points and any choice I have over the airline I book). It's not really clear to me how to get best value. It looks a bit like Virgin is better than Flying blue, but I'm unlikely to need to travel Virgin with work, whereas I think the flying blue codeshare has more airlines going where I'm likely to be sent. Not sure about Emirates but I only got 1000 points for a round trip to Entebbe via Dubai, because I was forced to book the cheapest economy ticket, so the options to earn there seem rubbish.

    Does anyone have any thoughts? As far as redemption goes it would just be nice for my girlfriend and I to get cheaper / free flights for any holidays we go on (I live in the SW so flying blue appeals as KLM operate out of Bristol), but if I'll get better value converting amex points to Amazon vouchers am happy to do that instead.
     
  2. Darren0291

    Darren0291 Member

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    dont change to amazon vouchers...
    keep the points on the amex until you actually need to transfer them to a specific airline...if you plan on cancelling the gold, take out the free amex points card to reserve the points on your account.

    personally, i use both virgin and BA, more-so BA at the moment due to the companion ticket as you get 1.5 avios per £1 spent and you get 26k points when you spend £3k in 3 months using my ref link
    http://amex.co.uk/refer/dARREEn9UG?XLINK=MYCP
    to get the companion ticket you need to spend £10k in 1 year...but then if you take out a supplementary card for the Mrs you'll get there in half the time and an extra 3k points from amex!
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2019
  3. Tcworldwide

    Tcworldwide New Member

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    Thanks. Will stick with the amex for now I think. Might be able to hit 15k and the 10k points bonus if I do some of the girlfriends spending on it, although the lack of acceptance by smaller businesses makes a bit of a difference.

    Main question is what airline scheme to try and target to build points in from other sources (e.g. actual flights, or shopping rewards) (Virgin seems to be more generous with redemption than Flying blue in that you need less points for reward flights?) But I think since it's still quite uncertain what airlines I'll fly with most it's hard to know, so wait and see I guess, and keep an eye out for points promos
     

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