Hi Stanley,

I dont know too much about them, except that you have to book directly with Air Miles. They have a huge office in Warrington (dont know if they have any other offices anywhere else)
If you phone them they will advise you how it works.

I know someone that works there so if you have problems locating them
i may be able to get you the number. (not sure if its allowed on here though)

Theberrybrooks

1000 miles equals £60. Well thats what it was when I booked my cruise through them recently. I had 2000 miles which I used against the payment and the cost of the cruise was reduced by £120.

You are also correct if you use them for flights, you still have to pay the taxes.

Using Airmiles for anything other than flights isn't really cost effective. £120 for 2000 miles, 4 people could have flown to Paris and back for that.

Was thinking of using some of mine from EDI to Paris next spring , however the taxes equal the cost of the cheapest flight through a tour operator !!

We used some of ours to fly from Edinburgh to London recently with BA. Using miles the flights were £45 return. You can get there cheaper if you use Easyjet but only if you book in advance. We were going at 48 hours notice so it would have cost us a lot more.
Bridd

edited for rubbish spelling
Bridd

People do get bargains with airmiles I know. We have never found them to be much use( only got some in the first place as I won some!). I have searched for flights and couldn't find anything that didn't seem to be almost as much as I could get the flights for anyway. for our recent Rio trip I realised that I could use airmiles to buy nights in the hotel I wanted to go to. They quoted me a miles plus daily rate where the daily rate was more than I would have been paying anyway!! Saying that a friend got a late holiday booking to Morocco which she was thrilled with. You do have a reasonable amount of miles. If you register on their site they will give you suggestions for your amount of miles. Let us know if you get a bargain!

We only use Airmiles now out of habit. Started collecting when you could get a weekend in a European capital including flights and hotel for 450 miles. (Long time ago) I remember driving to thier Crawley office with a box of 2-mile paper tokens for a weekend booking.

Anyway, we have just booked a day-trip Dover-Calais for 400 miles(car & 5 passengers). And they are good for other day trips as well or even theme parks. As we get them with Mastercard and fuel seems like its free.

I agree with all posts as to the fact that airmiles are no longer the perk that they once were, particularly with budget airlines etc. they now seen to be more like a travel agency.

One thing that is worth checking out though is trading them against eurostar tickets generally and particularly in conjuntion with going to Disneyland Paris. I did this a while back can't remember the exact deal but at the time it seemed to offer far better value than their other offers/promotions.

I appreciate this is only of use to people within striking distance of Waterloo and Ashford.

They are not so good value with flight prices lower than years ago.

Recently I used 900 up on 12 bottles of wine. No packaging & postage costs involved so that's not a bad deal.

I've just booked a weekend away in Dusseldorf next Easter using Airmiles. Return flights for 2 people from Manchester and 4 nights in a 4 star hotel inc breakfast cost 3690 miles + £201.80 including taxes and their insurance. Seeing as the cheapest deal I could find for the hotel alone elsewhere was £364, I think that's pretty good.

If you look upon them as a way to get an extra treat, book well in advance and are flexible about where you want to go, I think you can still get some reasonable bargains.

Thank you for the info about the wine, vt7777. I had no idea you could get wine through Airmiles. Both my husband and myself had 700 and 600 points respectively just sitting in our account since 2001 when they changed the local garages to Texaco from Shell, and I have now been online and ordered a case of 6 bottles of South African wine with my airmiles and a case of 6 bottles of assorted wine with my husband's. All set for Christmas now!! Thanks again ! Violetta

Last year I bought seats on a budget airline to spain and used my Airmiles for the hotel.
worked out cheaper then using the Airmiles for the flight!