Does anyone earn air miles to get free/cheaper flights? Not sure how it works

0gac3yjefb5sv7

Thanks

Caranica

Yes. But they're not free, you still have to pay taxes and other charges.

You need to be doing a lot of travel, at full fare with an airline /alliance that has a decent frequent flyer programme.

ted1

Yes, I fly lots with work. So collect the miles.
Recently I booked; Family of five return to Malaga with 20kg each =220 euro
Same again except to London 200.

Generally travel with BA and then transfer the avios to Aer Lingus.

Lately I’ve been flying with Etihad and have enough to bring my wife with me next time.

ted1

Mr.S wrote: »

Coupled with a decent credit card that gives points which convert to miles, which is a struggle in Ireland.

The Monese card links to avios.

NSAman

Of course people do.

Travel rewards (if you can call them that) are one of the perks of flying frequently, there are also credit card miles (mostly used in the States)

You still have to pay taxes and fees.

I use both my credit card miles (which can be much more generous in the States than Europe) and frequent flier miles to fly relatives for vacations here and sometimes for myself on feeder routes for major travel. OK it isn’t free but it can save some money.

I have miles on all the major airline companies more than I will use myself.

0gac3yjefb5sv7

But what cards can you use for this?

killbillvol2

Pheonix10 wrote: »

But what cards can you use for this?

None offer great deals in Ireland. It's a big thing in the US.

On the initial question, how often do you fly? Unless you're flying regularly at full price with the same carrier you won't earn enough points to use.

0gac3yjefb5sv7

killbillvol2 wrote: »

None offer great deals in Ireland. It's a big thing in the US.

On the initial question, how often do you fly? Unless you're flying regularly at full price with the same carrier you won't earn enough points to use.

Probably 3/4 flights a year to Europe...

Ficheall

Still no harm to sign up though, right? I only signed up for Aeroplan in 2018 because I had no brand loyalty and only took a couple transatlantic flights a year, but last week I used my miles to get a 200e flight for 50e, so I'm annoyed now I didn't sign up for miles earlier. (I think I had tried previously, but their website was a crock of ****, so I gave up half-way through the process.)

Caranica

Pheonix10 wrote: »

Probably 3/4 flights a year to Europe...

With what airlines?

0gac3yjefb5sv7

Caranica wrote: »

With what airlines?

Ryanair/Aerlingus

L1011

You need to be spending huge volumes and realistically travelling a lot - as the best earn out partners are hotels and car hire - to do anything here.

I make more from Justeat then I do from my credit card and I put 35-40k a year though my card and use Justeat twice a month. It is an awful earn source in Ireland but there are so few other options

lainey_d_123

Pheonix10 wrote: »

Probably 3/4 flights a year to Europe...

It's hardly worth even thinking about it with so few flights.

To put this into perspective, there was one year I flew with the same airline multiple times in a one-year period. I had a return trip to Australia, return trip to Mexico and probably 8-10 return trips within Europe. For all that I got about 70 quid off a 500 euro flight and moved one rung up the 'status' ladder.

To even get a totally free flight, you need to be flying long haul every few weeks, all year round.

Caranica

Pheonix10 wrote: »

Ryanair/Aerlingus

Nothing with Ryanair and if you're buying the cheapest Aer Lingus fares you won't get many miles either.

Airmiles work best for people who travel very frequently and travel long distances or multiple sectors.

L1011

Pheonix10 wrote: »

Probably 3/4 flights a year to Europe...

You don't even vaguely count as a frequent flyer and no amount of points scraping elsewhere can override that.

A return trip a month on one airline and you're getting somewhere

killbillvol2

The best use of airmiles, if you have them, is to get upgrades to Business Class.

EverythingGood

Pheonix10 wrote: »

Ryanair/Aerlingus

I fly about 40 times a year, mostly Ryanair but this year with TAP, LOT, Georgian, Pegasus and Aegan. Have aboyut 20000 Avios points but only on Green level.

0gac3yjefb5sv7

L1011 wrote: »

You need to be spending huge volumes and realistically travelling a lot - as the best earn out partners are hotels and car hire - to do anything here.

I make more from Justeat then I do from my credit card and I put 35-40k a year though my card and use Justeat twice a month. It is an awful earn source in Ireland but there are so few other options

Is this with Avios?

ted1

killbillvol2 wrote: »

The best use of airmiles, if you have them, is to get upgrades to Business Class.

I’ve often got upgraded without points. They tend to look after loyalty club members.

L1011

Pheonix10 wrote: »

Is this with Avios?

Yes

VG31

I am not a frequent flyer as such, I mostly just do short haul flights on EI, BA and Star Alliance. I'm a member of AerClub, BA Executive Club and Miles & More.

Despite not getting nowhere near enough miles to advance up tiers, I still manage to to do quite well on Avios earnings. I have over 50,000 Avios and less than 10% of that was earned from flights.

I earn a lot of it from hotel bookings. Expedia bookings through the AerClub eStore earned 10 Avios per €1 for a while last year and I earned a lot of Avios through a series of bookings. You can earn Avios on Booking.com, Hotels.com and ebookers as well. There is an offer on with Kaligo hotels at the moment where new customers get 2,000 bonus Avios. I got 2,500 Avios for a €120 hotel stay.

I earn Avios off other sites like Easons, M&S, GAP and the Book Depository. I don't get much from these but it adds up eventually. I try to buy when there's promotions on where possible. I get Avios from the JustEat card linking as well (10 Avios per €1). You earn 12 Avios per €1 from the LoungePass site as well which is particularly lucrative.

This site https://www.headforpoints.com/ is great for finding out about Avios offers.

I've used my Avios for business class upgrades and booking last minute flights that were extremely expensive to book with cash.

With my Lufthansa Miles & More miles I managed to buy an umbrella.

EverythingGood

VG31 wrote: »

I am not a frequent flyer as such, I mostly just do short haul flights on EI, BA and Star Alliance. I'm a member of AerClub, BA Executive Club and Miles & More.

Despite not getting nowhere near enough miles to advance up tiers, I still manage to to do quite well on Avios earnings. I have over 50,000 Avios and less than 10% of that was earned from flights.

I earn a lot of it from hotel bookings. Expedia bookings through the AerClub eStore earned 10 Avios per €1 for a while last year and I earned a lot of Avios through a series of bookings. You can earn Avios on Booking.com, Hotels.com and ebookers as well. There is an offer on with Kaligo hotels at the moment where new customers get 2,000 bonus Avios. I got 2,500 Avios for a €120 hotel stay.

I earn Avios off other sites like Easons, M&S, GAP and the Book Depository. I don't get much from these but it adds up eventually. I try to buy when there's promotions on where possible. I get Avios from the JustEat card linking as well (10 Avios per €1). You earn 12 Avios per €1 from the LoungePass site as well which is particularly lucrative.

This site https://www.headforpoints.com/ is great for finding out about Avios offers.

I've used my Avios for business class upgrades and booking last minute flights that were extremely expensive to book with cash.

With my Lufthansa Miles & More miles I managed to buy an umbrella.

How do earn from booking.com? I use it a lot, wasn't aware of this perk.

VG31

EverythingGood wrote: »

How do earn from booking.com? I use it a lot, wasn't aware of this perk.

https://www.avios.com/ie/en_ie/collect/booking-com

OR

https://estore.aerlingus.com/retailers/147888/booking-com-ie

I usually use the first link as you add your membership number rather than tracking via the eStore, which isn't always 100% reliable. You get more Avios with the eStore at the moment however.

lainey_d_123

EverythingGood wrote: »

How do earn from booking.com? I use it a lot, wasn't aware of this perk.

Same and I've used it dozens and dozens of times over the past 4 years. Why on earth isn't it better advertised?

Caranica

lainey_d_123 wrote: »

Same and I've used it dozens and dozens of times over the past 4 years. Why on earth isn't it better advertised?

I use it to pick up Skyteam miles

We had a busy two years travelling around Europe for weddings. We booked our hotels through the Avios website and earned around 2,000 Avios per booking.

We also ended up in the US three times in less than two years, visiting family and friends. We made sure to fly with a partner airline and asked the check-in team to add our AerClub number to flights if it wasn't there already. Again, we booked all of our hotels through the Avios website.

Most importantly, I did most of my online shopping through the website as well. It was really annoying but I was making more Avios doing normal shopping than I was for European flights.

All told, we only made about 50,000 between us in that couple of years. That being said, we are using them for a trip to London next month, that's only cost us €40 extra for our hotel, using 27,000 Avios. We will use my partner's for flights to Europe next summer.

lainey_d_123

Caranica wrote: »

I use it to pick up Skyteam miles

Feeling very frustrated now as I'm a very heavy user of Booking.com and this is the first I've ever heard of an Avios link. I wonder if I could put all the points on retroactively?

VG31

lainey_d_123 wrote: »

Feeling very frustrated now as I'm a very heavy user of Booking.com and this is the first I've ever heard of an Avios link. I wonder if I could put all the points on retroactively?

No unfortunately. I missed out on years of Avios from bookings. I've only started collecting them off hotels in the last year or so.

mandrake04

I fly Sydney to Frankfurt 2-3 times a year, earn about 30,000 KrisFlyer per trip also earn load of Velocity and Qantas points domestically, I usually have enough Krisflyer’s/Velocity every two years for myself and wife for return premium economy flight Sydney to London just have to pay all the taxes and basic airfares for the 2 kids.