That feeling when you hit “send” and 280,000 hard earned frequent flyer miles vanish is a hard moment for many people to comprehend. There’s no way to collect that many miles without clever planning, flying and effort. All gone in the click of a button. After cashing in 280,000 miles, we were both back to zero with our British Airways mileage accounts, minus 30,000 credit card points, which we decided to transfer over to the program, giving us 60,000 miles, which can be used just 4,500 at a time for short flights, which are often very expensive. Those 60,000 miles became very handy in a British Airways fare sale…
Background
British Airways has offered some incredible fare sales from both sides of the pond. You could get roundtrip business class tickets between the US and most of Europe (vice versa) as low as $484 or £428 (separate sales) by applying miles at an enhanced rate towards the cost. The actual price was floating between $1200-$1600, but for 30,000 miles you could take roughly £700/$762 off each ticket, rendering the incredibly low fares. We applied our 60,000 miles to two tickets, securing round trip business class for $686 per person out of pocket.
Transatlantic Bonus
British Airways and American Airlines each offered “Transatlantic Bonus” promotions for travel completed before January 31st. It’s actually still running. In the promotion, once registering, you would receive 25,000 miles for every round trip in business class completed before January 31st between the US and Europe (vice versa). So yes, let’s recap. I spent 30,000 miles to save $762 off my ticket, but I would instantly receive 25,000 back, not including the miles for actually flying, the class of service bonus, or any elite status bonuses. Laura would also receive 25,000 miles, meaning we spent 60,000 to save over $1500 off our tickets, but already had 50,000 back.
The Miles For Actually Taking The Flights
When you fly business class, which we did at economy pricing, you earn 150% of the miles flown, rather than 25% for most economy fares. Therefore on flights between New York and London and London and San Francisco, we earned an additional 17,000 miles a piece. A general member would still have earned an additional 13,000 per person. So, recapping, 25,000 miles each for the Transatlantic bonus, 17,000 miles each for actually flying, the way it is year round, and here we are, 85,278 shared miles in the tank from one round trip flight.
My Mind Blowing Expert Tip
Read your email. Yep, that’s it. I have an email address just for airline marketing communications. It allows me to take a few minutes a day, scan through what’s out there, and most importantly, not miss crucial offers. I saw the email, registered for the promotion, found an amazing fare, many of which are still available going from Europe to the US and took a flight. Constantly staying flush with miles doesn’t mean constantly flying, it just entails making the most of advantageous opportunities like this one.
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