Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

The HfP chat thread – Tuesday 30th March

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Comments (273)

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

  • Paul says:
    30 Mar30 March 09:18

    Re. Airtime rewards, does anyone know what is up with Morrison’s? Seems to have disappeared as a listed retailer for me, can’t even find it in the drop down to raise a claim. Was it once use only?

    • Andrew says:
      30 Mar30 March 09:20

      It’s only ever on for a few weeks at a time.

    • Reney says:
      30 Mar30 March 10:52

      It is still available for me. I have used it 4 times and it has all tracked.

      I would welcome info from others who have earned a lot via Airtime, how are you going to use them all up? My phone bill is currently £6 per month!

      • Paul says:
        30 Mar30 March 11:23

        Good question, also holding a very small phone bill. I assume any credit can be carried over if changing networks etc?

        • The real John says:
          30 Mar30 March 15:16

          You can change number every 30 days, so pay a friend’s bill or top up their PAYG phone.

      • FlyingChris says:
        30 Mar30 March 12:17

        If you have a compatible phone network you might be able to find you can charge certain services to your Pay Monthly bill. I believe on o2 you can do this ‘charge to mobile’ with Disney+, Apple App Store, Playstation etc. Might be a way of redirecting existing spend to use up Airtime Rewards depending if there are any fees or not. Haven’t properly looked into it, but it’s on my radar.

        • Reney says:
          30 Mar30 March 13:21

          Others have told me you can gift credit to others, I’m hoping that works. I have no plans to change network. Will probably up my monthly giff gaff goody bag when I need to commute back to the office again. So will use them eventually.

          One person last week said if you have more than £100 they will pay it out in paypal. Only one person said that…

      • Tom says:
        30 Mar30 March 13:55

        Vodafone at least will allow you to buy a PAYG phone and add it to your monthly bill. So if you have a lot it might be worth buying a phone and then selling it on eBay on a £1 fee day.

  • mark2 says:
    30 Mar30 March 09:24

    These excess ClubCard points (up to 7 per £ i.e. 16.8 Avios per £) were not limited to 3V cards. It also made the Visa gift cards with £3.95 charge and Amex gift cards with economic.

    • Secret Squirrel says:
      30 Mar30 March 09:37

      Good when you had money off coupons that zeroed out the fee and gave you profit.

      • Polly says:
        30 Mar30 March 09:41

        Exactly, had loads of those.. gosh, miss those days

        • Sprout says:
          30 Mar30 March 09:53

          Indeed. And the 100% money back price match offers…
          Kids lived off racks of lamb and Betty Crocker pancakes for many months! 🙂

          • Zoe says:
            30 Mar30 March 14:10

            I loved that, so many items Tesco paid me to take away, I think oven trays were a good one.

          • Polly says:
            30 Mar30 March 22:44

            And the cabbages, seriously my lot said never ever again!

    • Secret Squirrel says:
      30 Mar30 March 10:26

      I went into the fee cards after 3v were withdrawn.

    • Ghosty says:
      30 Mar30 March 10:31

      The Health & Beauty extra points AND money off coupons. You could also use the ‘give up smoking’ coupons. Add the fact that Tesco’s till I.T. was not very good, meant that you could buy bogofs and the till regarded the spend as say £20 instead of actually cost of £10. Using the money off coupons and selling at car boot sales I was earning a profit even with out the points taken into account. Over a million airmiles not one earned from flying.

  • Andy says:
    30 Mar30 March 10:12

    Once the 15 nights from the Amex Marriott card hit your account, do you keep them if you cancel the card? I need to pay the annual fee in my next statement but I don’t see much benefit of keeping the card open now that I’ve hit Titanium for 2021

    • TGLoyalty says:
      30 Mar30 March 10:15

      The points stayed when I cancelled mine last April but I signed back up in August so not sure if that changed anything before the end of year tot up (I doubt it)

    • FFoxSake says:
      30 Mar30 March 10:22

      Yes. I cancelled mine early this year and nights stayed.

  • Toomanylogins says:
    30 Mar30 March 10:23

    Please can anyone help me with some advice on making a T -355 day booking with a 241 voucher?
    I want to book a return trip but to optimise the dates in both directions.
    So I am trying to understand if I can make the outbound booking 355 days out with my voucher as a one-way trip and if I can then add a return leg as a change a week or two later when I can see availability for the return flights?
    If so, can I make the bookings online or is this a case of needing to call to get this done?
    Thanks in advance!

    • Rhys says:
      30 Mar30 March 10:26

      Yes, you can add the return at a later stage, but you have to call to connect it. In general, it’s better to call anyway as the agents can hold tickets whereas online the tickets aren’t yours until you pay – by which time, an agent has potentially held the tickets for someone else.

      Remember that tickets go live at midnight GMT, so 1am BST.

    • Jonathan says:
      30 Mar30 March 10:33

      You can make the outbound booking on release either online or by phone.

      When the return leg is released you can either;

      a) call up & book. This costs you exactly the same as doing a return booking.

      b) book the return leg online & then call up & combine the bookings. For this option you need enough Avios to cover the full price upfront with 50% of the Avios returned once bookings combined. You will have to pay the taxes, fees & surcharges for 2 single legs rather than a return though as this is not corrected when you call.

      This is advantageous for places like Hong Kong, Japan & Brazil which have low/no carrier surcharges for the return leg but will cost you substantially more for a return leg from USA where surcharges are over £500 per person for a USA-U.K. leg.

      • kitten says:
        30 Mar30 March 11:35

        “surcharges” @Jonathan? these are called taxes not surcharges

        • ankomonkey says:
          30 Mar30 March 14:03

          ‘Surcharges’ must be the codeword for taxes. You can pay them with Beardo, Che Guava or Aim-X.

          • Jonathan says:
            30 Mar30 March 16:40

            I think kitten is joking about the long running debate about lumping carrier surcharges (essentially a redemption fee) in with taxes (a genuine expense for airlines). There’s definitely no code involved!

      • Toomanylogins says:
        30 Mar30 March 12:04

        Thanks Rhys and Jonathan – that’s really useful info!

  • rams1981 says:
    30 Mar30 March 10:54

    Good news – triple tracking on recent Morrisons purchases – Virgin/PAW/Airtime. Touch wood all go payable. Virgin only just came through for purchases on 20th/24th March.

  • 747_Brat says:
    30 Mar30 March 10:56

    Just touched a cumulative credit limit of £50k with various credit cards I hold. This brings me to an interesting question: how much credit limit is too much credit limit, to the point that lenders start seeing you as a credit risk?

    As with the first rule of miles & points cards, I have always repaid everything in full and never defaulted on payments. Should I start reviewing my card portfolio and cull the cards I don’t use much?
    Thanks.

    • Mikeact says:
      30 Mar30 March 11:11

      A few years back, in the industry , I was going to seriously go for the Guinness Book of Records (UK) for the most cards held. In the end, a local TV appearance was enough for me. Interestingly, the great majority are still ‘live’ with 25p held in credit on each, which I guess makes me a good customer !!

    • Jimc says:
      30 Mar30 March 12:48

      I’d love to know too as I often worry that my overall limit is too high. £108k credit limit (salary slightly less than that) over 6 cards – always pay them off, never missed a payment. That said, I’ve never had an issue, when I have applied for credit in the recent past I’ve always been accepted. Most recently HSBC WE.

      • 747_Brat says:
        30 Mar30 March 13:01

        Thanks for your reply @Jimc
        May I ask the strategy you follow with the cards that see less usage. Do you cancel them or just keep them for the credit limit?

    • The real John says:
      30 Mar30 March 15:19

      What’s your income? If you have £100k income £50k credit limit is probably OK.

      In 2015 I got to £50k total credit limits when my salary was only £25k, then I decided to tone it down a bit because some people were reporting MSers were getting questions from their banks.

    • The Savage Squirrel says:
      30 Mar30 March 19:56

      I remember seeing in the news (possibly pre credit-crunch when banks didn’t give a f**k?) about a semi-retired guy who had a very average income and decided to apply for every card on the market to see what would happen. He ended up with £1.5 million worth of credit limits :D.

  • Chris says:
    30 Mar30 March 10:58

    I used to buy a lot of digital cameras and camcorders on eBay and recycle them through Tesco’s scheme. Earned me best part of 2 million airmiles

    Could never find 3v cards near me so barely got to dip my toe in that glorious pool

  • Mikeact says:
    30 Mar30 March 11:01

    One of my household accounts is coming up to 3 years with no activity apart from Avios reward activity. Any recommendations on the cheapest item to purchase to keep it active? Thanks.

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