Loyalty has its rewards

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  BA Galleries lounge

  © British Airways

Sitting in a cramped economy seat is not the best way of beginning your holiday, yet plenty of people still don’t collect the magic miles that could make the difference between a seat at the front of the plane and a seat at the back.

Frequent flyer schemes haven’t been around for long: Braniff developed the first such programme in 1980, with United, Delta and British Airways following soon after. Today, every airline of note has such a loyalty programme, rewarding the accumulation of miles (from flying and other sources) with the opportunity of redeeming for free flights, car rental and hotel stays. Frequent flyer schemes also give special status to those who fly most frequently: benefits can include lounge access while flying in economy, faster accumulation of miles, discounted upgrades and priority waitlisting.

The advent of global airline alliances has also meant that opportunities for earning and spending miles have increased. This is particularly true of the UK airlines representing the largest two alliances: BA (Oneworld) and bmi (Star Alliance).

BA Executive Club

British Airways Executive Club has three tiers of membership: blue, silver and gold. Silver and gold membership give increased earning potential, lounge access and the ability to reserve seats in advance of check in. Earning miles on BA and its Oneworld partners is straightforward: deep discounted economy fares earn 25% of the mileage flown, full fare economy earns 100% with World Traveller Plus earning 125%, Club earning 150% and First earning 200%. You can also earn miles via Oneworld partners (similar mileage rates apply), buy miles directly from BA (up to 19,000 per year) and earn miles from car rental firms, hotel chains and other partners including Tesco.

Although Executive Club earning levels are not the highest amongst airlines, there are some specific ways in which you can increase your earning potential and make best use of your miles. Most importantly the BA American Express card allows you to earn miles on all purchases. There are two card variants: the Basic card earns 1 BA mile per £1 spent whereas the Premium Plus earns 1.5 miles. Premium Plus card holders have this amount doubled (i.e. 3 miles per £1) when spending with BA.

Both cards give you a voucher for second free ticket when you are redeeming miles with BA, effectively doubling the amount of miles you can spend. The voucher is triggered when you spend £20,000 in one year using the Basic card, or £10,000 in a year using the Premium Plus card. Although only a single voucher can be earned each year, a recent change means that you now have a full two years in which to exercise it.

The other important way of maximising the use of earned miles is by setting up a Household Account. This type of account groups the miles earned by people at the same address into a single ‘pot’ for redemption.

An example

You can see the benefit of both the BA American Express Premium Plus card and the Household account in the following example, demonstrating that booking a first class flight for two can earn enough BA miles for a Club World trip for two:

2 x first class tickets, London to Sydney return = £10,488

Total household account mileage earned by flying = 84,520

Miles earned from BA Amex Plus card = 31,464 (and a 2-4-1 voucher)

Total miles = 115,984

With the voucher these miles can be redeemed for a Club World flight for two people from London to San Francisco (100,000 miles).

bmi Diamond Club

Diamond Club has four levels of membership, Blue, Blue Plus, Silver and Gold. Silver and Gold tiers offer lounge access (partner lounges are only available with a Gold card) and all tiers other than Blue get complimentary food on those flights that normally charge for food. You can earn miles on all Star Alliance flights, with the amount of miles dependent on class of travel. Typical earning rates are 200% for business class and 300% for first class, although there are a few exceptions to these rules. This level of earning makes bmi a great solution for accruing miles quickly and there is also a bmi branded credit card to increase your earning potential.

While Diamond Club doesn’t have BA style household accounts, nor the opportunity of earning 2-4-1 vouchers, the scheme does have one important trick up its sleeve: when redeeming miles you can spend a little cash to make your miles go further. So, instead of a London to San Francisco flight in business class costing 67,500 miles you can spend just 37,500 miles plus £210. Obviously taxes must be paid on top of this, but it’s a very effective way of making your miles go further.

An example

You can use multiple Star Alliance partners for redemptions, and a single stop-over outside of Europe is permitted. This makes creating multi-centre holidays very easy for no extra miles.

Outbound: business class London to Bangkok on Thai Airways, stopover for a few days and then business class from Bangkok to Hong Kong

Return: business class from Hong Kong to London on Air New Zealand

Total miles spend: 52,500 plus £360

One final point: as of mid-2009 bmi is now controlled by Lufthansa who may be making significant changes to Diamond Club in the future to bring the scheme into line with their Miles and More programme.

By Mark Stephens