I'm confused. Can someone explain in idiot terms how the whole airmiles thing works? By this I mean where you earn 'miles' for travelling so you can accumulate enough for a free flight one day. I've been through the airmiles website & am none the wiser

I thought it was maybe something to do with whatever credit card you have? Maybe I'm being thick, but I'd be interested to know how it works and how to do it!

Anyone on here avail of airmiles/frequent traveller type things?

You can get Air Miles with certain credit cards as well as with purchases in come stores, and both if you use the collector card and credit card together. You need to sign up for an airmiles collector card.

Other financial institutions and airlines offer their own. We use Avion with RBC and the BA Executive Club. Some card have restrictions on seats available others not. It involves a lot of research to figure out which is best for you.

Points can be used for seats or upgrades.

Think of it as a glorified Nectar card - you can gain points by travelling, or shopping in different places - petrol stations, liquor store, clothes shops, etc. Points or miles can be cashed in for travel, or various other offers. Last time I cleared mine I took a Chapters gift card, a Gap gift card and one other one I can't remember.

http://www.airmiles.ca for more info.

Air Miles UK is nothing to do with Air Miles Canada, so you can't bring your UK miles across. I'll have to spend them one day if they haven't dropped off...

Hmmmm that's what I thought. I'm not sure I really spend enough money anywhere on anything to end up with many miles anyway. I'll check out the Canadian site though that might be a more sensible thing to do, cheers!

If you get an affiliated credit card as well as the "Airmiles" card, pay for everything with the credit card and show the "Airmiles" card where it is accepted. You'll be surprised at how fast you'll accumulate points.

We pay all our utility bills, cable bills, groceries, my prescriptions and anything else we can with an affiliated credit card and pay it off each month. Plus we use the "Airmiles" card at stores where they give points.

Cheers
Steve

I find Airmiles UK pales in comparison to Airmiles Canada. In Canada Airmiles are more easily accumulated than they are here and you get more for your dollars than you do for your pounds. As mentioned before they are two different entities and not interchangeable.

I've used Airmiles UK for flights to Europe, Eurodisney deals and stuff like that but they are no use for long haul flights in my opinion. Usually the flights they have are way more expensive than the likes of Zoom, Canadian Affair, Air Transat and it works out cheaper just to pay a charter airline fare than waste your airmiles against the scheduled airlines that they have, usually British Airways, with a starting price of about £700.

I collected my Airmiles UK from Tescos Groceries and I also had Tesco Homephone and got a lot through it. Last year we got 80 GBP off our boat trip Larne/Stranraer and we used the rest of them when we came to Canada in January - we booked our hotel in Calgary for the night - FREE and that finished our airmiles down to the last 5 or something like that.

So it has defo been worth it for us, here we collect Airmiles and Aeroplan miles.

We obtained an airmiles collector's card at Rona (DIY) one day last summer and have sporadically remembered to use it at the relevant collection stores - Safeways, Rona, and Shell mostly. I currently have 2,250 airmiles - it won't get me much yet - but we have today received an American Express AirMiles credit card (yay ! got aproved - we must be 'real' here now in the eyes of the Canadian credit agencies ) - and will now try to do what Steve P does and pay for lots of stuff on that, and also present the Airmiles Collector card too - that way getting two bites of the same cherry.

And as Biiiiink says - you don't just have to use it for flights - you can cash in the airmiles for gift cards, cameras, saucepans, suitcases, etc - whatever tickles your fancy at the time ... I figure if you are going to be spending X thousand dollars a month anyway, why not rack up some airmiles too. And keep an eye out for the double, triple or five times the airmiles offers that turn up all the time.

(And finally, if you are buying a house when you get here, some realtors also offer airmiles on the purchase - now that sure could gather a few )

Cheers everyone!

Bringing this one to the top again - with a new question please ...

I collect airmiles on my standard Airmiles collector's card.

I am now collecting airmiles via my Amex Credit card too.

How do I marry up the two collections into one nice big fat number? Can I tell airmiles.ca about my credit card 'miles' ?

The airmiles.ca website does not seem to answer the question - has anyone booked a flight by using more than one collecting programme - and who did you book it through?

Thanks ...

To the best of my knowledge Ann you don't have to do anything the Airmiles accumulated on your Amex card will automatically be added to your other Airmiles.

We have an Amex card and an Airmiles Mastercard and never did anything to merge them with the Airmiles card.

We have noticed the ones from the credit cards are slower at being added perhaps they wait until you have paid the bill.

Cheers
Steve

OK Steve - thank you - but how do Airmiles know I have an Amex card? Did I put the number down on the original application? I can't remember! I can't see them looking me up and doing it automatically ...

I shall watch my balance more carefully now and hopefully see it increasing at a much faster rate. Ta !

Probably for the same reasons we had lots of phone calls from mortgage brokers when ours was up for renewal. Companies in the financial services sector know an awful lot more about you than you might think.

Companies also do mailing list swaps (mine does it all the time).

The online application asks if you are already an Airmiles member and if so what is your number.

So I'm guessing you told them.

Oh - I know that But if it was for something that was of a benefit to ME, I don't think they'd go to too much effort to link up my collection programmes