No longer collecting miles

Well, I still may fly VA but I'm no longer going to actively collect miles with them or use my VA Amex any longer. I've got over 70000 miles now and the misses has 61000 but its just to expensive to use them.

I looked last month at using miles for an econ flight to Orlando. Doing it PE MpM saved me £3 [:0] when I used 15k miles so no go there.

Rang up Flying Club yesterday to get a price for a flight to Sydney in Jan next year. If I used miles to upgrade and economy ticket it would cost me £1695 each for the econ ticket and then the miles to upgrade. If I just booked and Economy it would be £789 each so thats £1578 so cheaper to buy two standard economy tickets than get one upgradeable one. Or if I booked a standard PE it was £1711 so only £17 more than doing an upgrade and I wouldn't use all my miles!

Don't even ask about a Companion flight ticket, where do they get there companion ticket prices from and which sane person would spend that sort of money when a standard fare works out cheaper?!?!?

Is there any point to collecting these miles aside from saving the odd few quid. Everytime I ring Flying Club up to try and use some miles there is either NO saving, a saving of a few quid or its actually more expensive!

Anyway, I'll still use the boards here as you are all VERY helpful, I just won't do the VA miles scheme anymore as I just don't see any benefit to it and feel like I've wasted the time collecting these points. [:#]

The points you make are valid and I know that sometimes the upgrade or the MpM fare isnt great - but I suppose ultimately it depends what you want to do with your miles and when and where you want to fly.

Personally I have just gained enormous satisfaction by using Flying Club airmiles I have collected over a number of years to book 2 return UCS seats to CPT. Now at the current fare price this is around £6k of ticket - and its cost me £300 in tax!!:D

But hey - if you dont think its working for you then its a free world out there - so good luck with whatever you choose to collect!

[fozzyo]

Originally posted by AndyR
Don't even ask about a Companion flight ticket, where do they get there companion ticket prices from and which sane person would spend that sort of money when a standard fare works out cheaper?!?!?

There are some good deals to be had on Companion flights. As for the pricing ... my feeling is that it is generally the preserve of companies to by full fare (J, W & Y) tickets in order to ensure full flexibility. Occasionally the rest of us can find a bargain to be had with full-fare.

I have to say, personally I've never thought of MpM fares to be good value - too often its not a great saving.

Personally I would say it is still worth building up your VS miles, if you just use the card for everyday use you will one day be able to get two Upper Class returns to most of the VS network for about £100 to cover taxes. Not that is a bargain fare.

Mat

I agree about MpM, and have to say from the little I have looked at companion fares are sometimes difficult. If you can make your plans well in advance then there are definitely fares out there to book for just the tax. As Mark says, these are real bargains, but how many of us think that far in advance these days. There are also routes with good reward availability - PVG springs to mind based on a comment someone made to me recently. For my money (or points as it happens) I found upgrades to be the way to go. Business would pay for a PE fare and I nearly always flew UC. Now for me that it very worthwhile, but it does rather rely on having to travel for work.

Like all these things, collecting miles is only worth it if you are going to use them. I used to collect airmiles, and stopped doing so for exactly that reason - I couldn't plan enough to get the real airmiles bargains. Now it seems there is no such thing as an airmiles bargain!

Totally agree with Jeremy, we've used our accumulated miles solely for upgrades. We either buy an EC or PE ticket (right fare class of course) and then use miles to upgrade. There's no way in a million years we would ever have been able to afford to fly PE or UC in recent years had it not been for exploiting FC miles to the maximum [y]

Our forthcoming UC flights to DXB only cost a little over £400 each because we purchased EC tickets and then used 60K miles each to upgrade. Now, some would say that's a poor use of miles, since it only costs around £1200 for a Z on that route - nonetheless we don't care, we're flying UC and we're saving around £1,600 between us - purely thanks to the miles. Since parting with all those miles when we booked last August we've now each accumulated enough to do the same thing all over again. Incidentally our first choice of dates was available when we booked. I do agree however that it is not always that easy on US routes. I remember when we wanted to obtain two G's to LAX last year we had to flex our outbound date by a couple of days, and that was booking on the 330 day threshold!!

Long live FC miles - without them me & Steve would be pretty much in EC all the time

I agree MpM fares aren't that good but i've had loads of free flights from my points (except the taxes of course) so i think it's worth collecting them still.

Thanks everyone.

I agree its probably just my crummy luck that whenever I ring Flying Club to try and use some miles, all the deals I can get are rubbish.

May have to think about using the miles to upgrade to Upper at some point then as I suppose the £3 saving I would have made doing it to PE which seems cack, would be much better if I got to do upper instead.

Sorry for the rant, bad weekend/morning/month/year [:#]

I have found MpM fares to be a good last resort for cheap economy flights when Amex travel have let me down with a similarly priced ticket.
Generally my company pays for business class on business trip flights over six hours, so no need to upgrade, and when travelling to or from my assignment base they only provide economy flights, and invariably get me the cheapest of the cheap so no chance to upgrade.
What the miles have meant on a couple of occasions is that MrsPVG can join me on a business trip, in business class for little extra cost.

Originally posted by AndyR
Well, I still may fly VA but I'm no longer going to actively collect miles with them or use my VA Amex any longer. I've got over 70000 miles now and the misses has 61000 but its just to expensive to use them.

I looked last month at using miles for an econ flight to Orlando. Doing it PE MpM saved me £3 [:0] when I used 15k miles so no go there.

Rang up Flying Club yesterday to get a price for a flight to Sydney in Jan next year. If I used miles to upgrade and economy ticket it would cost me £1695 each for the econ ticket and then the miles to upgrade. If I just booked and Economy it would be £789 each so thats £1578 so cheaper to buy two standard economy tickets than get one upgradeable one. Or if I booked a standard PE it was £1711 so only £17 more than doing an upgrade and I wouldn't use all my miles!

Don't even ask about a Companion flight ticket, where do they get there companion ticket prices from and which sane person would spend that sort of money when a standard fare works out cheaper?!?!?

Is there any point to collecting these miles aside from saving the odd few quid. Everytime I ring Flying Club up to try and use some miles there is either NO saving, a saving of a few quid or its actually more expensive!

Anyway, I'll still use the boards here as you are all VERY helpful, I just won't do the VA miles scheme anymore as I just don't see any benefit to it and feel like I've wasted the time collecting these points. [:#]

You can always gift them to me[}:)][}:)]

I have to agree with the majority of the posters here, saving for upgrades is the way to go. I spend as much as I can on the card, buy wine regularly, sign up as many friends as I can, and stay in Radisson SAS hotels to maximise input. As a result, we can pretty much get an upgrade to UC for the three of us once every year or 18 months. Don't give up, your both pretty close to getting a decent upgrade or even a free flight if you hang around! [y]

Yeah it may finally be paying off. We are looking to emigrate v.soon to Oz so were thinking of somehow getting away cheap. Was looking last night and found I could get a reward flight to LAX for 50k and £129 so probably do that.

Pointless

Loyalty schemes are all about perceived value rather than real value. No sane company is gong to give away ANYTHING, this is ALL about upselling.

Miles plus Money is a pitiful waste. Even spending miles on Economy tickets is virtually plane stupid (to use Virgin's jargon).

Be very careful how you use your miles. It could have cost you forty five THOUSAND pounds to accrue enough miles to fly on the most competitive route in the world (london to new york). That might buy you a flight worth about £150 and you would STILL have to pay about £130 tax. However right now on the Virgin site the miles price is down to 36000.... Never seen that before.... but if you try and book a combination econ/PE or UC or PE or UC those miles tariffs are as per usual

[Decker]

Consensus is that the best use of miles is for an upgrade. Just upgraded coach to UC using miles for a flight in June as this valued each mile at 2.6 p versus upgrading PE to UC which valued them at 2.3 p per mile.

Miles plus money is generally seen as a sop to those who earn very few miles but want to feel they're getting something for their miles.

I don't see how you could spend £45,000 for a flight unless you're not actually EARNING miles by flying and instead are using credit card spend. That sort of spend on flights could easily get you more than 200,000 miles.

Loyalty schemes are all about perceived value rather than real value.

Well I do get real value out of the FF programmes I am in.Last year wife and I enjoyed 2 miles purchased First class RTN trips with BA and one MFU CW-F RTN.Yes we had to pay the taxes but that's life,miles were earned from flying and our normal spending on an amex card and a few from Hilton honors.Thats over £20k worth of flights booking them in the cheapest booking class.Now to me that is something for nothing:D

Hi Decker

Yes, I was looking at spend on a White Amex for someone who is not a frequent flier but would like to be. Simplistic nonsense of course.

[Decker]

The return on credit cards is more of a bonus than a proper incentive. There isn't the margin in the transaction to make the reward meaningful. Have to admit I'd be gutted if a £40,000 spend translated into an economy ticket! But you could take that 40,000 and upgrade to Upper from Premium.

It depends if you can use your credit card for business expenses. I was racking up a lot of miles on the Mastercard until Virgin helpfully switched to American Express. I have persuaded one supplier to my business to accept American Express and he is acting as a distributor for other supplier's products who currently refuse it. I have already got my companion ticket reward, for which, of course, I wept tears of gratitude....

I'm now in the process of cataloguing all UK online retailers who accept AMEX.

[Decker]

Yeah we use Amex almost exclusively - never really have problems with it. Got quite a nice MR balance sitting there which filters to VS or HH as required.

Well it has all paid of in the end. Booked our first reward flights tonight. Going to Palm Springs for a week in September so flying to LA economy outbound and PE inbound for 62500 miles each and £129 each. SUPER CHUFFED!

Will be our only reward flight probably as we are looking to emigrate to Oz next yet so obviously won't be collecting miles then.

Originally posted by AndyR
Well it has all paid of in the end. Booked our first reward flights tonight. Going to Palm Springs for a week in September so flying to LA economy outbound and PE inbound for 62500 miles each and £129 each. SUPER CHUFFED!

Will be our only reward flight probably as we are looking to emigrate to Oz next yet so obviously won't be collecting miles then.

Well done Andy - like you said - worth holding out for!! Good feeling aint it?

[y]

Originally posted by MarkJ
Well done Andy - like you said - worth holding out for!! Good feeling aint it?
[y]

Yep. Got a put disillusioned with it for a while but its paid of in the end. We couldn't afford to go away properly this year so having the chance to do this has meant we can.

Still not totally convinced its worth it, only because it taken us 3-4 years to get to this point, but if like a lot of people on this forum you are flying a lot, or melting your Amex each month, I can see why/how its worth it.

Thanks for everyone's help!

Can't wait to get to Palm Springs now

That's it, I'm done. I have paid off my holiday and got my triple miles with VH and I promised myself that was going to be the end of it.

I really believe it's an illness, at all costs I felt I needed to spend every penny using the Amex because if I didn't I felt those miles calling out to me pleading. It was like a little devil in my head.[}:)]

Soooo, I got myself another non mile earning card and hardly ever use it and I feel like a weight has been lifted. No pressure anymore.

True no miles either but it was just costing me money that perhaps I shouldn't have been spending anyway[V]

I'm freeeeee:D

thelaceys