About 6 months ago I was talking incessantly about booking our Disney holiday for 2016 and my friend Sarah from Extraordinary Chaos said “You are collecting Air Miles aren’t you? You know if you start now you will have enough to really reduce your flights or even be able to get an upgrade.” As I still hadn’t persuaded hubby that Disney was a good idea, I thought anything that might bring the cost down would help, so I started looking into Air Miles. We spend a small fortune every month on petrol, food shopping and Amazon purchases alone so it seemed silly not to try and take advantage of this.
Once I started looking into Air Miles I realised it was quite a minefield, there are so many different cards and a number of different schemes. Some you pay for, some you don’t. So I went with the recommendation from Sarah and started to collect Avios points with British Airways with a Premium Card we paid £150 for, for the year. I figured that if I was going to treat myself to flights with points and the possibility of an upgrade I wanted to make sure that that upgrade was with a company I knew would be superb, and who had great facilities for the kids.
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Whilst I couldn’t wait to save up enough points to book our Disney flights (I’m too impatient) my email from the BA Executive Club last month tells me that so far we have collected 39,807 points and have gained a companion flight. This means that so far I can book for one of us to go to most places in Europe with the points and with the companion flight one of us will go free. If I use my Avios to book European flights then there is only a flat fee of £35 rather than taxes too. It really isn’t going to take many more months and the 5 of us will be able to have free flights.
So that got me thinking about the fact that BA now do Family Holidays too. If I book our ordinary Family Holiday with BA and get Avios points in return too then I really will get that free flight.
So where will we go? Jersey, Barcelona, Faro, Nice or Rome. I think deciding that will take a little more time. Where would you go??
NB: This post has been put together in collaboration with BA.
Karen Beddow founded Mini Travellers in 2014 while doing what she loves most...going on holiday!
Mini Travellers is for parents looking for holiday ideas, destination reviews, days out and things to do with the kids. We also have family travel tips, activity ideas and all other things family holiday related. Take a look at some of our latest reviews for holidays and day trips in the UK.
Sounds better then the Virgin air miles we tried using for our Disney upgrade. We saved enough points to get all 4 of us premium economy upgrade for our Florida trip instead of just economy. Went to book and told we would have to pay taxes that cost more then if we were to just pay for the upgrade with cash. Livid was not the word after we saved so much for it. Would not recommend Virgin credit card to save for air miles for upgrades.
I’ve just started collecting Avios. Mum and I are planning a trip to New York next year and an upgrade would be fantastic. I best get spending 😉
Nice. This is one of those things I keep meaning to look into but haven’t yet. I really need to get on it, I guess.
Such a great idea, especially with all the travelling you do! When you know you have a free flight it is a great excuse for an extra holiday too 🙂 xx