I took out the BA premium plus through Amex , I had an email that offered me 40000 AVIOS if I spent a certain amount in the first 3 months , the fee was £150 year and I had a good think through it all , taking into account how many AVIOS I estimate to earn in the next year from flights , how many I would need for upgrades and exactly how I would get the benefits by putting my spending through the card . If I put £10000 through the card I get a free companion reward , which is useless if you have plans to fly only as far as mainland Europe , but if you are going to the Caribbean or Middle East then you are saving a sizeable amount despite having to pay taxes and fees . Now I was wondering how I was going to spend £10000 in a year as I already use the Hilton Visa card for most of my spending , ( no yearly fee ) and collect a lot of Hilton points alongside using Hilton hotels quite frequently to earn more points and benefits , spending on this card it is easier to earn gold status than trying to earn it by staying the required number of nights per year and gold status does have good benefits when using Hilton hotels .
I worked out that I could put £10000 through Amex if the wife had a card and used it to pay for Tesco shopping , I mean £100 a week over 50 weeks is half of the spend needed already and I can do the rest on flights and other hotels over the year.
So I have just got the 40000 AVIOS bonus which is just as we'll because I spent 50000 the other day on upgrades on flights to St Lucia !!!! I got club class return for £900 each and £300 off the hotel cost because I booked them together , I've already got flights to Minorca in June which I paid £350 for , I decided not to use AVIOS for them , it would have been £54 plus 30000 AVIOS , instead I've saved them to build up so I can get to 120000 and use them for a reward flight to Dubai and use the free companion reward as well to get first class return flights for just taxes and fees which will be just under £1000 .
So in my case I value 1 AVIOS as worth more than 1p
and if anyone wants to give me 20000 ( you can legally transfer them ) I will snap your hand off if you only want £25 for them !! Tell you what, double it , I offer £50