Miles Question

Morning all. Apologies if these questions have been asked before. I had a bit of a trawl but just want a bit more advice.

I am trying to figure out the best way to build up miles outside of jumping on a plane. Would it be to take out a Virgin credit card? We put a fair amount on our current card every month and pay it off at the end of each month. I have also seen that Tesco Clubcard points can go towards miles. Again, my spendaholic wife keeps Tesco in profit!

I am aiming to try and get enough miles for a New York trip next year for my 40th but don't really know if this is feasible. We both have 10.5k miles from a recent St Lucia trip. I appreciate that there will have to be some cold, hard cash involved as well.

I suppose the next question would be how easy/difficult/impossible it is to get miles seats? I know when I flew with BA quite a bit, getting a seat via Air Miles was next to impossible unless you wanted to fly by yourself at 3 in the morning to Azerbaijan!

Many thanks

Sam

I am trying to figure out the best way to build up miles outside of jumping on a plane. Would it be to take out a Virgin credit card? We put a fair amount on our current card every month and pay it off at the end of each month. I have also seen that Tesco Clubcard points can go towards miles. Again, my spendaholic wife keeps Tesco in profit!

Getting a miles earning cc is the way forward, but which one depends on your spending patterns and how much of a fee you're willing to pay. Amex Gold and the VS Black card are worth looking at in this respect; I think the former is cheaper and does double points on travel spend (and groceries in year 1) but the latter has double miles on everything; the former has an advantage for some in that it doesn't tie you in just to VS.

Also, if you do any travelling and can make selections about where to stay, Hilton Honors double dipping can prove a reliable source of miles, as a single overnight stay can yield 1000 miles.

I suppose the next question would be how easy/difficult/impossible it is to get miles seats?

On the NYC route it had, in my experience, been fairly straightforward as long as you're flexible about dates/ times and JFK vs EWR.

You don't indicate whether you're planning to take the straight miles option or to use miles for an upgrade. Given fees & taxes etc it may be worth considering shelling out for an upgradeable economy ticket and using miles to upgrade to travel in UC....

Hope this helps.

That's fantastic, thanks for the reply. I need to weigh up the fee paying cards but we do put about 3-4k a month on our current card.

I would be looking to buy an economy and upgrade. Dates/time/exact location would be very flexible so hopefully that will help.

Cheers

Sam

With that sort of spend you should rattle up the miles in no time,I signed up for mine in the CH and got 30000 miles free ,may be worth asking if they are willing to do the same as some sort of incentive for you to sign up,you get a visa and an Amex with the black account and its more beneficial to use the Amex if you can as you get double the miles over the visa
Blacky