Questions and Answers

I do a bit of travelling for leisure purposes but the vast majority of my air miles are earned on my credit card.

I live in London and my partner and I have made several business and first class trips on BA using a variety of Amex cards but predominantly the Premium BA Amex card utilising the companion voucher.

I am constantly hearing that the BA reward scheme is poor value for money. So I want to know if there is a better way for me to accrue and use my points using a UK credit card but with airlines other than BA.

Many thanks

Miles

Hi [USER=1176]@Miles Lawson[/USER] and welcome! [USER=7]@Tiffany[/USER] wrote a post this summer about this topic: [URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/07/30/choose-credit-card-outside-us/[/URL]
Those sign-up bonuses we Americans take for granted are not so common elsewhere.

As you know, the problem with using Avios for premium cabin longhaul travel is two-fold: 1) the longer (or more legs) the trip, the more Avios required and 2) those darn fuel surcharges. So even if you’re actually flying on BA planes you may be better off crediting to American or Alaska. Part of your decision process may be where you intend to use the miles you accumulate. If you’re trying to earn/keep status with BA, that could influence your decision as well.

If you have more questions after reading that article, be sure to let us know.

As a Brit living in the Middle East I have been trying to find the right UK based credit cards.

I have an SPG AMEX which gave me 10,000 signup bonus and you can transfer the points to many airlines (I have transferred points to both AA and Qatar Airways). Its 1 point per £1 spent.

There is also the MBNA AAdvantage Visa and AMEX cards with no yearly fee. 1.5 miles per £1 spent on AMEX and 0.75 miles per £1 spent on the Visa. They currently have a 15,000 mile sign up bonus (normally its just 5,000)

BA awards are absolutely the best around. But get qualified for a BA Gold. Could be done for around £1,200. PM if you need to know more.

[QUOTE=”AlexGBBAGold, post: 11804, member: 1393″]BA awards are absolutely the best around.[/QUOTE]

For short-haul flights in economy this is absolutely the case. For long-haul premium cabin awards British Airways is among the worst. Having status doesn’t remedy the tragedy that is the long-haul award chart.