blonde poker forum

19.5k NY (45k P.E.)
25k LV

For the travel donks that means?

For the travel donks it means you won't even have a Flying Club account so it won't matter.

For those that do have Flying Club accounts and have earned miles before, you can redeem your miles at a heavily discounted rate during this sale.  25k miles will get you a free return flight to Las Vegas (you pay taxes)

wiiiiiiiiiiiiii

i have 21k miles! - might buy a few and get away

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, i have 57k miles.

Everytime i have ever tried to book these i have been told they are sold out or there are non available on that particular flight.

Got a link or know the dates avail?

Sigh got 51k not 57k, still enough for 2 round trips. Obv gotta have a word with the missus but need to get these booked asap. Its looking at being £285 with taxes and all that shiz.

(http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff384/Milligan84/NewPicture5.jpg)

For those that use Virgin credit card, you can get a free upgrade to P.E when you book economy reward also, so 25k pts and ~ £300 is going to get you a Premium return to Vegas. 

sick bit of info, massive bink at picking up a virgin cc last month. tyty. Sigh at it being maxed..

lol...up your limit innit

You need to "earn" the free upgrade too... something like £10k+ spend in a year.

'Mrs Milligan84, as I have been a good boy this year and even took my socks off when I go deep. I have decided to give you a weeks rest from my degen antics and have decided to take the boy Betts to Las Vegas with me. Don't worry darling, as virgin are paying me to fly with them, plus I'll have an upped limit by then. So its win win'.

If carlsbergs did convo's..

More like:

 " Alright Darling, i'm going to Vegas again ",
"What, no fucking way, you fat ****, you f*****, ***** "
" babes, don't worry, its with my air miles and i'm going with Betts, you know how boring he is. We will be in bed by 8 with a Virginia wolfe novel "
" yea, fair point, he is old and boring, plus he is ginger so no girls will go near you. have fun and get binking "
" thanks angel, now get back in that kitchen, mwah "

I've got a virgin account but no miles....if i book a virgin flight through another site do i still get thi miles added to my account?

Yup, you get them after your flight. Either enter your Flying Club number when you check in online, or present the card/tell them your number when you check in at the airport.

These flight compnies allocate a certaint number of seats per flight, sometimes like 4 or 6 seats, for people who wanna pay by rewards points.  If those seats are gone, even though there might be 100 unsold seats, they will not let them go to rewards points people.  Upgrading is different..!!

Usually its 50k miles to LV round trip (75k PE and 100k upper)

Assuming for ease of maths the taxes are the same for each cabin class (you pay a little bit more in higher cabins)

Assume for ease of maths that you can get a economy seat for £500 by being organised and booking during a sale fare.  (perhaps I should assume that you are all poker players and will pay £900 a couple of days before..)

So, by redeeming 50k miles for a rewards flight, it costs you nearly £300 in taxes anyway, so 50k miles saves you £200 (but the reward flight doesn't earn you any reward miles or tier points) so it really isn't that big a benefit.

By that maths, using 2 reward flights @ 50k saves you £400 (less the benefits of miles foregone).  BUT, the 100k pts COULD have got you an Upper Class return.

So the best value is undoubtedly to save the miles and treat yourself to Upper.  Or enquire at the desk (not check in desk) about availability of upgrades on the day.  Personally, I'd rather just book Upper, you know you can take extra luggage, you don't mind getting there in plenty of time as you know you can use the clubhouse.  Admittedly, they don't put up too many reward seats in Upper, but they can be had, particularly if you are flexible on dates by a few days.

For those that don't fly very often or are on a tight budget, I couldn't put anyone off taking a 50% sale fare for 25k miles.

Dont talk to me about Flying Club.

I had 35k + miles which are now lost because my account was dormant even though I was still playing on Virgin but didnt transfer points  >:(

Sorry to hear.  For anyone else in similar situation, transfer points in from partner sites, (you can make 1k miles providing random answers to questionnaires for example) or if you have to, buy 1k miles.  Points earned automatically on their credit card keep the account active.

ROFL I am a travel donk and I have a Flying Club account so I guess I'm the exception :D

I only have like 8k miles from my flight to Vegas last year though so I guess that's not much good. My plan was this year to buy a few thousand miles each month so I could get a cheaper PE flight when I book in January/February for next Summer.

This is where I'm a donk now as I am a bit lost with the requirements etc.

Should I buy a lump of miles this side of xmas then some more after xmas and how many would I need to take advantage of this promo?

Ah I think I get it, if I buy 17k miles now I could get a flight and only pay taxes to Vegas?

I think the "buy miles" option is on offer at the moment too.  The reward seat sale is only on until 20th Sep.

It should be some easy maths to work out which is best:

a) Buy 17k miles + your 8k miles + ~£285 taxes = ?
b) Pay for the ticket, earn another 8k miles = ?
c) Or pay for an economy ticket, in a non-sale fare ticket class, and buy+use 20k miles to upgrade to Premium.

For me personally I would never cash in 75k miles for P.E to Vegas.  Another 25k miles would get you Upper,  Upper is soooooooo much better than Premium, AINEC.

And just out of curiosity, I took a closer look.  15% buy miles sale until 5th Oct.

Sooo, mid Nov economy flight = £569.50 (+ earn 5,222 miles + 4 tier points)

Buying 25k miles atm = £333.75, redeem them for limited flight slots + £285 tax = £618.75 (and no miles or tier point earned)

For my money, 25k miles + credit card voucher for free premium is ok.  30k miles to upgrade from economy to Upper on the way back is ok.  100k miles for Upper round trip is ok.  Everything else seems to be pretty meh. 

Thanks Simon I'll not be booking up for the summer until next year so that option isn't a goer....

I think I'll buy 22k miles and upgrade to upper on the way back for 30k. I'll no doubt be depressed after knocking it in for a few weeks so that should make the journey home much better :)

If you buy miles do they credit straight away, don't want to buy some and then fine when I go for the flights they are gone

If you are upgrading one leg, return leg ftw imo.  Most people that I have heard of have upgraded going out, but getting to lie down flat and sleep the return journey is >>>> filling your face with aeroplane f&b on the way out.

and bear in mind that the upgrade on spec is far from a certainty.  They may not do it due to availability or restriction on flight ticket class.

Being extremely posh I don't mind going PE but always try to come back upper. Price for this upgrade at the airport on the day is very decent, or has been when I've done it and have been lucky enough to get a seat each time. Tis a bit of a risk though

The other thing worth looking at that I did last time I went to LV is to book Upper to a non businessy destination - I went to Orlando and it was very cheap (less than half the price) versus Upper to LV. Internal flight from Florida to LV still quite long but felt OK, was cheap, and I had a few days on the gulf coast which was nice.

No idea if there are other destinations where you can get Upper quite cheap that provide for a shorter internal flight, also, it may be that if you book this far out that upper to LV aint that bad. It was over 5K at the time I last booked but did Orlando for around £1700.

OK, who swapped my bookmarks for blonde and flyertalk.com?

Yeah on the way out there just the fact I'm gonna be in heaven for a few weeks means I couldn't give a fk if I was on the floor. The flight home is as depressing as it gets though and I'm almost suicidal after sitting in the airport for a couple hours in that POS terminal. If you're gonna be flat for most of the flight home and living it up then it might be more bearable.

I like a nice sweat and hopefully the fact I get assistance at the airport will work in my favour too. Can't do any harm going for a bit of the old sympathy from the checkin staff too :)


My budget stretches to an upgrade from econ to PE Nirvana but I have to think about my 5 star dining fund which would be light should I start thinking about flying upper as an initial purchase. I'd say probably 50% of my annual spend in Vegas is on food which won't surprise many that have met me as I'm a lump :D

I eat nothing and stay in crap hotels so I can lump it on the flight :-)

Haha

I became a bit of a BA Air miles nit over past two years....I hate tunring right on a plane, but do not have the bankroll needed to turn right.  If you get family and friends help and play the game, can rack miles up...

I have a black BA Amex which I pile everything on getting 1.5 miles per £ and a companion voucher at £10k which means if I spend £10k, I can spend 100k air miles on a business class flight and get second for just taxes.

They have an online shop, where you can link through John Lewis, Comet, TM Lewin, Sky, literally tonnes of shops getting 1 to 14 miles more per £ spend (more if use Amex obv).  Tesco club card also exchanged etc - soon racks up!

So true. Upper is so much more comfortable.

Also if you're flying back from Vegas, you get to use the lounge when flying upper, so you can have a few drinks (Crown and coke ftw) because that terminal is pretty awful otherwise.

edit to add: Also some of the sales are pretty decent. I managed to get a BA return to Vegas for £1600. If I remember correctly it was booked in October/November, for flight in the following year.

Think I'm gonna book premium out, economy back and then try the 30k miles upgrade to upper on the most depressing flight of the year.

I've just looked and I can get 22nd June - 9th July for £850 which is good enough and better than I was expecting. I was gonna go out and stay until the end of the ME next year but flights go up like £270 and it's not much diff to me when I'm there as long as I can play a few tourneys while I'm there.

Isn't it 30k per cabin to upgrade though??  ie if you want to upgrade from economy to upper it is 60k...30k from econ to prem and 30k from prem to upper.

thats round trip prices quoted:


Economy to Premium Economy   20,000 miles
Premium Economy to Upper Class  40,000 miles
Economy to Upper Class          60,000 miles

is virgin air miles thing really good?

I was gonna get a air miles credit card but i didnt know which one was the best to go on.

So if I could find someone to 'gift' me a 22k miles and then buy 30k myself. I could try for an upper class upgrade both ways if I book econ initially :)

I haven't done a market comparison, I just fly on Virgin a fair bit so it wasn't a tough call.

There's a free white card, and a fee for their black card, worth it if you spend a lot on cards.

For: Miles rack up each month, which means your miles balance doesn't expire dormant.  Pay it off in full and who cares about the APR.

Against: Plenty of retailers don't accept Amex (including some Virgin brands!)

If you are going to take out a card, (or just want to join flying club) PM me.  There is a referral programme where both parties get bonus miles for the new business.

Yep, defo this. If you know anyone who isn't a member and flies with Vrigin, the bonus miles could soon add up

Bumping an oldish thread.

I'm currently using my Visa card for work things but their reward points are pretty crappy.  I spend a fair bit a month (£2.5kish) and still only have enough for £100 off something at John Lewis or something after a year or so of saving.   Would obviously love to go to Vegas for the pokers and having a free (except taxes) flight would help a lot.  Am I better off with the Virgin Card or someone mentioned the BA Amex card.   Looking at it, the BA one seems better.  It's 8500 Avois points for a return to LV in business and you get 9k for spending £3k or more in the first three months, surely that's too good to be true.  How easy is it to get tier points?  It's also 140 of those.  I'm not a regular flyer but I can spend the £ on the card which would hopefully help.

Hardest part is getting the Mrs's ok to go without her !

Any advise welcomed

Where do you see 8500 points for a business return to LV? It's way more than that - I make it 100,000.

I spend quite a lot of monies on fuel would i be better off getting an Asda credit card and filling up there every day and paying off the bill monthly?

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/flight-calculator/public/en_gb#results

LHR to LAS

8522 Avios and 140 Tier points.

Virgin now offer a Visa card to go alongside the Amex (you get 2 cards on teh same account, so you can use Visa any time the Amex isn't accepted.)

If you take their black card (£140 p.a.) and spend everything on Amex:

2.5k monthly = £30k p.a.  That would be 6k bonus miles for joining and 60k miles on spending for 66k miles total.  In the process, you would also earn vouchers for two premium economy reward upgrades and a complimentary companion reward flight (no excuse not to take the missus)

On top of that, if you spend a decent portion of that £2.5k/month on shopping online, you can use the Virigin shopping link to get significantly more miles to boot.  

It would be quite possible that each year your card rewards would amount to a 'free' upper class flight.  OR, a couple of economy reward flights, insta-upgraded to premium, with a free third economy reward flight to go with it.

There is also a white card with no fee, divide the above rewards by two.

That's how many you earn on the flight, not what you can buy it for.

Otherwise you could fly once and fly for free ever after.

Whatever credit card it is, you are better paying it off monthly without a doubt.

I have no idea what the Asda rewards are, but whatever they are, you can compare them with the ones ^^ for Virgin.

There are lots of bonus miles available on top of the ones you earn too.  Whatever your fuel bill is, 2 points per £1 plus whatever you can squeeze on top.  (bonus miles for buying Virgin products, including the flight itself etc)

Most of my money spent isn't shopping so there's no bonus there.  Wasn't keen to spend £140 per year to get a card but a free upper class flight would make it worth while I guess as the couple of PE flights!  Nice bonus.      Taking the Mrs would make it happen even if it means less poker!

Ha ha, I'm a fool.  Thanks :D

I spend around £150 a week on Diesel.

So now you can work out how much that is a year and how many flying miles that gets you and compare it to asda.

So since ive been taxi driving ive burnt thru £12k of fuel, Sigh at not having all thos transactions on a virgin card. Would i be able to get a free flight to vegas with all those purchases?

Im off to Vegas next december would it be wise applying for a Virgin Card now and would i have enough points for a flight next december? whats the best option White Visa or Amex?

its not just about getting the points together for the flight, it is a massive ball ache trying to get a flight, when you want, to where you want, which has the qualifying reward seats available. (with Virgin anyway, might be better with BA)

Remember you still have to pay taxes and fees with VA reward flights.  I redeemed a "free" flight to Vegas and had to pay ~£265 in taxes and fees. Worth taking into consideration when comparing the card to a cashback card.

Im more confused than Paul Ho.

I spend £150 a week on fuel and i pay with cash.

I could obv save the cash at one side and use a card for transactions and pay off the card every month with the cash i have saved.

So what card would give me best benefits for these circumstances?

Not being rude, but all those answers are less than 4 clicks away on the Virgin site?  I assume you have internet access as you post here, so I guess you cba to click and want me to?

Off the top of my head, you need 50k miles for a reward flight (39.5k atm on sale)  So if you get a black card you get 6k bonus miles.  you need 34k more miles for the sale far (£17k spend) or 44k more (if the sale ended) for £22k spend.

If you are smart, you will earn plenty of bonus miles along the way with no little effort and a few clicks.

Depends on your definition of ballache.  First choice dates are sometimes not available, but with a little flexibility, I have always been able to get something handy.


Yes, you still get the taxes and fees, definitely worth taking into consideration for comparison purposes.  In my mind, taxes and fees on Upper are < £400 and treating the miles as a freebie, that's a slam dunk of a price.


Even for pay-at-the-pump benefits, I'd have thought a card woudld have made sense.  What benefits do you want?  Free sarnies in Asda or free flights?

Just heard the asda one gave u money off per litre but not too sure. Would like free flights tho.

It's Girgy.

[X] solid read

of course I've looked at the site. i just need reassurance when looking at thinks like this and u seam well clue'd up about it all.

OK, I have sent you a referral link to use.  In return for signing up, I will spend some time making sure you get max benefit from it.  You also get bonus miles from the referral.

Let me know when signed up and I will take you through it.  You can't possibly lose money (unless you max out your card on spending and don't pay it off..)

Possible even better for you girgy would be having a Lloyds TSB Duo Credit Card (1 Amex and 1 Mastercard for when Amex is not available)..

1 Avios for every £1 spent on Amex  (1 for ever £5 on the mastercard)

Buy Fuel from Shell - 1 Point for every Litre - Can set up account to convert to Avios at a rate of 10 Avios per 20 Litres of Fuel

Tesco Clubcard for Shopping Purposes or if you get the fuel from them instead. Convert Tesco rewards to Air Miles..


Shell Points - 1785 Litres Per Month = 90 Avios Per Month

Credit Card - 2.5k Per Month = 2500 Avios Per Month (All Shell's Accept Amex)  = 2600 Avios per month 31k Per Year Approx plus any shopping done at tesco can be converted into Avios..

FWIW, The Virgin Amex comes with a Visa card too for those situations mentioned by Jizz

And has a deal with Tescos...

Would always recommend taking a look at options out there - but for anyone wanting free flights to Vegas, Virgin CC has to make the shortlist.

Did not realise that they had joined as well..

Looks like you get 625 Virgin miles and 600 Avios for the same £2.50 ClubCard Voucher, and I think their Credit Card is the same points per £ spent on their respective Amex Cards, and its 50k (Avios or Virgin) to get to Las Vegas so both rewards/schemes are the same except the extra 4% Virgin Miles you get per £2.50 spent using Clubcard Vocuhers

You can also do some online shopping through Avios to get more points..

I think it works out better that if you cannot use a Amex Card (for Avios Duo) that you use a Tesco Clubcard to do spending and then convert to Avios when u get the voucher.. Important.. Make sure you get your tesco clubcard vouchers Quarterly or whatever they send out and not yearly, as they always last ages, but you can get massive bonuses sometimes when u convert so worth waiting sometimes.

Don't shop at tescos.

Fill up at shell. I have a shell card which i chose fuel vouchers for instead of air miles. receive around £15 of free fuel per quarter.

Might want to think about filling up somewhere else then and losing £15, but gaining half a flight.....

Change the reward for avios then ur points automatically get done every month. Also look out for the shel vouchers u get for filling up. Can get loads of free points for handing them in / being savy with them (sounds like you put enough in not to worry about the stipulatons each month to get the extra points)..

Now get yourself a Duo Credit Card, pay off balance every month, and hey presto, a free flight to Vegas every 12 months or so if you use it properly.

Some bonus Avios available if you open an avios account first.. Then add them as different new ways of collecting.. I.e Open an avios account today.. change your reward on ur shell card to avios and in 12 months they will give you 8k free.. Open a Duo Card through avios and use for 12 months another 8k bonus..

Right im done on avios or virgin for now, time to watch the TV.. good luck setting it up, but the points start rolling in once you have done it.. do it sooner rather than later, your going to put some fuel in that car over the next few weeks!!!!

I'm just looking at flights for the summer and they're already increasing in price :(

Simon seems to be the don as far as the workings of Virgin go so I was wondering if they're likely to have any promotion after xmas in which the flights are going cheap(er) or if I should just crack on and book now.

Historically there has been a post-Christmas sale.  However, Virgin seem to be fairly uncompromising on Vegas, which is a 'premium leisure' route.  I'm not sure if their thinking is that people going there can afford it, or that they are somehow trying to squeeze a few more bucks out of the old fleet before delivery on the new livery which is looooooong overdue.  (June apparently, but heard that a few times before...)

Not sure what price you are looking at, if it is c£600 then that's probably worth taking.  If it is much more than that, it is probably worth the gamble that there will be a sale fare in time.  Not great odds tho, as even sale fares are increasing, anything sub £500 is dynamite.

Yeah I read on the site they're going to start running out the 'purple' line from April next year and by the end of 2012 all flights out of Gatwick, Manch and Glasgow will have it.

At present it's £700 flying out on the 22nd and back on the 6th, lucky really that I want those dates as on the 23rd I see flights go up to 900  and this is just for economy both ways.

I'm going to book economy going out and premium coming back as I'll be in need of a little more plushness on the depressing post vegas journey. I'm also going to top up to 20k with miles and see if I can nip an upgrade to upper on that flight too.

The cheapest the flights have been 22nd-6th was a month or so back when they were at £620 for econ and within a couple weeks were up to 660. I've never seen them really go down before but I generally only start looking after xmas so haven't paid much attention in past years to the prices at this time.

I think I might wait it out a little longer and see if anything happens in the next month and then just book it straight away in January if nothing looks like being offered.

Btw, I have just copped another 1k points using e-rewards, altho I might have to X-post that on the nit thread  ;D