13,200 Avios with an Economist subscription and 7,200 Avios with home insurance

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• Antonio says:

  28 Aug28 August 04:58

  Worth noting that the Canadian subscriptions add a sales tax, which varies per province. The Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut have no territorial sales taxes, so only the 5% federal tax is added. If you happen to be able to choose your own billing address, hypothetically. In theory.

• asy949 says:

  28 Aug28 August 07:12

  First OT for the day – I’ve been mulling over the best churning strategy for the BA Amex PP between my wife and I (yep at 7am on a BH wkend..). The main use for the companion vouchers would be to bag 4 tickets for us and the 2 kids ever year (or every other depending on eventual strategy). Something I’ve managed to achieve this year with 2 vouchers under my name. Spend rate conservatively pitched at £10k/8 months. Current considerations are:

  1. I maintain a continuous subscription and churn 2 vouchers over 20 months or so. In the interim, refer my wife every 6 months. (realistically twice in the 20 month period, because of spend rate limitation = 9+26+9+26 Avios in 20 months, £380+£100 subs – assuming the DFS approach continues with bonuses)
  2. Both of us hold our own cards, I will refer her some 8 months (limited by our spend rate) into my current subscription. This gives us 2 vouchers in 16 months. Issue tickets, cancel one, downgrade the other, re-refer in 6 months, repeat cycle. Benefits are the flexibility with two of us holding a voucher each, however likelihood of us travelling apart with one kid each are slim. (9+26 Avios in 16 months, £507 subs (I think – one person for 1.7 years, one person for 0.7 years). But a slightly faster rate in churning out vouchers.

  I’m getting my head tied up in knots here particularly with the costing and wonder if anyone had suggestions, or if there is a consensus strategy for a family of 4? Keen to have any deficiencies pointed out too! Thanks all

  • Kipto says:

    28 Aug28 August 11:17

    I don’t know how old your children are or where you intend travelling to. The amount of money required in taxes/surcharges makes long haul economy redemption with avios/241 vouchers of little value. If you want four of you in long haul club world together I suggest only New York or Washington DC are the only destinations where you will get four seats together but if your children are young those destinations might not suit you. I have just travelled back from San Francisco on a 241 redemption with my family of four in club world using two companion vouchers, one in my name and the other in my wife’s. My son and I went on the earlier flight with my wife and daughter on the flight two and a half hours later. It was fine. Spent an enjoyable hour or so in the arrivals lounge, showered, fed and watered before wife and daughter arrived a few hours later.

    • TigerTanaka says:

      28 Aug28 August 11:23

      We got 3 redemptions in CW to DXB over Easter holidays this year so this might be a consideration.

  • Yuff says:

    28 Aug28 August 17:37

    Try looking in F, costs more avios but sometimes you’ll find better availability than CW 😉

• Ian says:

  28 Aug28 August 08:45

  For The Economist.

• Aliks says:

  28 Aug28 August 16:22

  Coincidentally, we are in Vancouver for a few days, and although the Economist is a self important right wing rag, I do read a few of their articles.

  Anyway, the link is detecting our location and takes us to a Canadian page which only offers delivery to Canadian addresses.

  Do I have to use some UK VPN to get the UK offer or is there some option to change countries?

  • harry says:

    28 Aug28 August 20:16

    The Economist is certainly ‘free market’ – which does not make it right wing, de se

    How are you proposing to grow money needed for schools, hospitals, civil protection etc unless you are also allowing people to develop & grow their businesses?

    Trade across the world increases wealth for all concerned. Pretty much all economists accept this – right wing/ left wing – as it is an unassailable fact.

    As regards your question, not sure but the download hola! would allow you to set UK as your location

    • harry says:

      28 Aug28 August 21:52

      Aliks: don’t tell me you’ve been sitting on the floor in the toilet corner on a Virgin train, claiming there are no seats available for you & your beloved, despite having walked past about 200 empty seats?

      Richard

      • Aliks says:

        29 Aug29 August 00:46

        If the Economist stuck to promoting free market principles, I’d be happy – those are the articles I read. But all too often they give space to neo-lib political rubbish that seems to be flying a kite for some right wing think tank or other – when I get my first copy I’ll point out a few choice items!

        And yes I agree with you that trade is good and that money doesnt grow on trees.

        • mark2 says:

          29 Aug29 August 07:03

          I strongly disagree with you there.
          I have had a subscription to the Economist for about 20 years and read it cover to cover every week. It seems to me that they have moved sharply left in the last twelve months or so e.g. on so-called renewable energy. They also wrote a long article about claiming interest against tax in which they conflated mortgage interest and businesses borrowing to invest. I am seriously considering whether to renew.
          Other people will have different views of course.

• Ian says:

  28 Aug28 August 18:13

  Currently on the Iberia website I can only transfer from British Airways to Iberia. Does anyone know why?

  • Genghis says:

    28 Aug28 August 19:11

    Can you push to Avios then pull BA from Avios?

    • RogerWilco says:

      28 Aug28 August 21:30

      Easiest is to PULL from IB and PUSH to BA. Only one login to avios.com, 2 transactions.

    • Ian says:

      28 Aug28 August 21:53

      This solution worked.

      Thank you.

  • harry says:

    28 Aug28 August 20:10

    it’s a common problem, Ian

    it might be because you are using a household a/c (not allowed BA end)

    try using Genghis’ solution, ie first transfer to avios.com

    also, the IT is rubbish, so simply try again later

  • Rob says:

    28 Aug28 August 20:40

    IT bug.

    Will be ok going via Avios.com.

• RogerWilco says:

  28 Aug28 August 21:28

  Just to note – I took the digital subsciprion in Canada (ehem) when this promo came out. The 10.200 Avios posted to the IB account – took a week or so.

• Dave says:

  29 Aug29 August 03:47

  Could you buy the Tesco insurance pay monthly then cancel after receiving the clubcard points ?

  • Danny says:

    29 Aug29 August 08:25

    Yes you can cancel but there is a cancellation fee of (I think currently) £20. Tesco policies are normally very competitive and comprehensive so unless you really want the cover I won’t be bother with the hassle. Another bonus is that they accept Amex with no additional fees. I have been with them every other year for the past 6 years; either via the cash back route or if they have a Clubcard points offer at the time.

• JP says:

  29 Aug29 August 08:57

  > You will need an Iberia Plus account to take part. Once the Avios points arrive – and as long as your Iberia account is over 90 days old – you can convert them to British Airways or avios.com via the ‘Combine my Avios’ function online.

  Does this mean that if your Iberia Plus account is less than 90 days old at the time the Avios arrive, they are locked with that account forever? Or does it just mean that you’d have to wait until it was 90 days old, and then you’d be able to transfer the points out, ever if the account was less than 90 days old at the time of arrival?

  • harry says:

    29 Aug29 August 09:15

    no they’re not ‘locked in forever’ – you just need to wait out the 90 days, then transfer them

    • JP says:

      29 Aug29 August 09:23

      Thanks!

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