Amazing Air-miles are Taking us To Miami.

Whoop whoop we have booked our flights to Miami for next year, and they were an absolute bargain, here’s how we did it. Now anyone that knows me, knows I have a bit of an obsession with collecting British Airways Avios. These are air miles that can be redeemed on British Airways flights, all over the world.  For me it is a no brainer, I just don't get why everybody I know doesn't collect them? 

During the years we have collected them, we have booked some amazing flights and saved a fortune. But this year we have been saving for the big one, a trip to Orlando. The flights have gone up so much over the years. Yet we love Orlando, so decided to start saving our Avios towards our Miami flights to bring the cost down. 

Here’s how it works; we have an American Express credit card with which every penny we spend we collect Air Miles, you also have the opportunity to build up companion vouchers. These are built up according to spend, I put all my shopping and petrol on my card, and when I pay it off I get points and my spend allocation builds up. Once you reach a certain spend level you get rewarded with a companion voucher. You can use up to 2 companion vouchers on a flight for a family of 4. 

We also collect extra miles by shopping at Tesco; I convert all the Club Card points to Avios. This really helps me build my points quickly. 

Once you have the required amount of points you can book flights and just pay the tax, you can also trade in your companion vouchers. So for example a flight in economy is 50,000 Avios plus tax of £366 pounds, but with a companion voucher you can get 2 flights for 50,000 Avios plus the tax of £733 pounds. 

We have booked flights to Miami in peak holiday time for 100,000 Avios, 2 companion vouchers and £1,466 pounds. Had we just booked and paid for exactly the same flight it would have would have cost  £4006.00 a huge saving of £2540.00 pounds. I know, how amazing what a bargain.  

The great thing is you can change your flight for a small fee. This is fantastic as we have only just saved enough air miles for economy flights, and wanted to get our flights booked as soon as they came out. We are now collecting air miles and hoping that if we can save enough miles before we go, and there are flights available, we can upgrade to premium economy or business class. How great is that?

Collecting Avios really does make long haul family holidays more achievable, and European flights a bargain. In our experience we have always found availability for the flights we wanted, it is just a case of being organised and booking early.