British Airways Airmiles

...time, the UK's national carrier, British Airways, had launched its own version. Air Miles, set up in 1988, differs from most other programmes in that it doesn't require participants to take a flight in order to collect miles. The firm signed up a whole list of partners who give away airline miles to customers who buy their goods and services. When you enough miles have been collected there are a whole host of things to spend them on. Not least of ...
...entirely free, as you will still have to pay surcharges or taxes.

Air Miles used to reward everyone who shopped and flew regularly with BA. But BA quietly moved 600,000 of its most loyal passengers into a separate scheme called BA Miles, which allows them to earn miles more quickly. Air Miles, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of BA, operates the BA Miles programme alongside its own.

HOW DO THEY WORK?

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Hmmmm .......... they might like us to think this is true - but what's it like in reality ?

AIRMILES – what are they? Well they’re a bit like Green Shield Stamps (now you know I’m over 40!) – without the stamps, gummy tongue from licking the stamps, and countless numbers of completed stamp books required to buy a dinner plate.

People just adore collecting vouchers and points and the like, just look at the loyalty schemes in existence today: Tesco’s, Nectar, Boots and so many others. Plus it’s a bit like saving up without denying you anything. There’s no personal sacrifice involved, in fact it’s the opposite, given that in order to attain points for anything there has to be a certain level of spending involved. What’s more there are multiple ways to collect points, not just on the items with points attached, but by paying with certain credit or debit cards etc. Or, better still it could be your employer's cash being spent to fly you off on a business trip.

Although most of the allure of air miles is the notion that you are getting something for nothing, the rest of the allure is that the "something" you eventually get is free travel, and I for one am a total travel junkie. Instead of putting pound notes under the bed, and that loose change in the Bertie Bassett money box, you put points on cards and miles in accounts.

AIR MILES – The History

The air miles concept was pioneered by American Airlines, with its AAdvantage scheme in 1981. American's rivals realised it was on to a good thing and were soon flinging themselves at their own collection schemes. United Airlines got its frequent-flyer programme off the ground in the US in the same year, although it didn't bring the scheme to the UK for another 10 years.

By that time, the UK's national carrier, British Airways, had launched its own version. Air Miles, set up in 1988, differs from most other programmes in that it doesn't require participants to take a flight in order to collect miles. The firm signed up a whole list of partners who give away airline miles to customers who buy their goods and services. When you enough miles have been collected there are a whole host of things to spend them on. Not least of which are of course free flights – which are not entirely free, as you will still have to pay surcharges or taxes.

Air Miles used to reward everyone who shopped and flew regularly with BA. But BA quietly moved 600,000 of its most loyal passengers into a separate scheme called BA Miles, which allows them to earn miles more quickly. Air Miles, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of BA, operates the BA Miles programme alongside its own.

HOW DO THEY WORK?

Whatever the scheme, the basic proposition is that you collect miles or points and spend them on free travel or related benefits. The Air Miles scheme now has well over 50 commercial partners with whom you can either collect or spend miles.

For me the greatest way to earn miles is via Tesco’s own Club card scheme. There is a bit of confusion at the moment as to how many miles are received. It WAS split into a basic earning value and a Premium earning value. If the shopper spent on average £60 per week then the mileage allowance was doubled, but they dropped this to a general across the board average of 60 miles per £2.50 Tesco’s voucher. Confused! Well. For each pound you spend in Tesco’s you earn a Tesco’s club card point. Of course there are offers on where you can earn extra points for buying certain products or combinations of products. Every 3 months a statement is sent out with the total number of points collected, which are converted into pounds. Basically a penny per point. A £2,50 vouchers converts to 60 Airmiles (unless you are like me and been used to Premium points in which case you will still be earning 80 miles per £2.50).

Further incentives for Tesco’s customers are that if you use and pay for your shopping with a Tesco’s Credit Card then there are extra points for doing that – which can add up to a LOT of points in a month to be converted. So many points in fact that myself and my other half who collect for the same account, use our credit cards for absolutely everything, and simply pay off the balance at the end of the month. By everything, I mean everything. Petrol, food, clothes, books, online shopping and even Internet travel bookings.

There are SO many other ways to collect, but to list them here would double up on info you can find yourselves at the Air Miles website http://www.airmiles.co.uk/

THE AIR MILES BUSINESS

How does it work? Well, companies such as Tesco, Shell and NatWest for example purchase miles from BA (and partners) at a set price per mile. BA then buys airline seats and holidays at a rate that is less than the amount Tesco’s etc pay BA.

How they MAKE money is simple, Air Miles effectively make money from the people who collect the miles but never actually get round to redeeming them.

TIPS and TRICKS

Collectors all have their own methods of earning air miles and points and getting the most out of spending them. The airlines also have some tips worth remembering.

The Air Miles web site has details of who to sign up with in order to collect. Its seems to take an age to collect with Shell on petrol but then I commute to work on a motorbike so I do not use that much petrol. For those who use company mileage and travel a lot with work it could be very worth while collecting points / miles with petrol stations such as Shell.

You can also collect with Homebase for general purchases from them on items for the house.

COLLECTING & SPENDING IN PRACTICE

I’ve been lucky, and have taken lots of trips with AirMiles. Often it has been to make life easier, such as booking a standard pair of seats using BA or one of their partners and using air miles for domestic free flights for example. This then makes a trip easier and keeps down internal travel costs.

Air Miles promote a lot of special offers on their website where at certain times of the year – mostly off-peak – there are few takers as people are saving for Christmas etc. This brings down the required number of miles per flight by a considerable amount. For flights which would normally cost over 9000 miles, a flight to the west coast of America can be as little as 2900 miles! Now that’s a bargain. Of course, to take full advantage of such offers it helps to be flexible in travel times and dates as very often the true number of seats are very limited, so you may have to travel a week or two before or after your first choice of dates. When you consider however that the flight will cost as little as the TAX charge, this brings down travel costs enormously.

On average I am returning £50 per 3 months from Tesco. This then converts into 1200 air miles. Over the course of a year this can add up to a sizeable amount. Last October my partner and I had saved enough AirMiles for 2 free tickets to New York. This year, by June we had recovered enough miles for 2 free flights to Vienna.

What are we saving for now? 2 free tickets to Toronto. Trouble is that we want to travel in June, which makes the cost per ticket a much higher amount. We need 5870 miles per flight Heathrow to Toronto. The cost would be £122 on top of that (for 2) which covers the applicable taxes. Plus to get Car Hire we can also do that using Air Miles with their partner AVIS. They are currently quoting for (12th-28th June2005) 6100 miles required to book a FREE 4 door COMPACT for the hire period of 16 days. This INCLUDES Collision Damage Waiver and ALL insurances etc – the only thing to pay for is FUEL and extra drivers. There is also the option to book FREE hotels if you have enough miles, but I often find that there are cheaper deals on hotels through Expedia and eBookers etc rather than waste miles on hotel bookings.

Now I know what you’re thinking! At 1200 miles every 3 months that only makes 4800 miles on Tesco’s – BUT we are building up more and more miles by using the credit cards that we have to pay for EVERYTHING. Fortunately for us we have just purchased some new motorcycles and have paid for a lot of that by using the credit cards. Now this is NOT as simple as it sounds either. For purchases over a certain amount companies would like to charge a surcharge which makes it NOT cost effective if you’re planning on paying the balance off at the end of the month. Let me tell you that most retailers make up these rules themselves. There is a surcharge to them for credit card purchases but they can absorb that “if they want the sale badly enough”.

Anyway – at the moment we have saved up since June this year another 4794 miles with another 640 in the Tesco’s system. A further 100 are coming from signing up to World Points. There are points from other credit cards, from petrol, from the RAC, from wine sellers. So we’ve got another 9 months away. I’ll keep you posted.

AIR MILES IN CONCLUSION

DO I RECOMMEND IT ???? Saving for points and Air Miles is nothing more than FUN and lots of it. Its an achievement to be able to save up for free anything, but free (or almost free) flights or discounts on holidays is nothing more than a bonus, and can often provide a holiday where one would otherwise not have been afforded for that year.

So go on – get saving …………………
 

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