A Guide To Maximising Airline Reward Schemes – An Overview

Our journey with reward points began back in 2013 when our family business hit a difficult time, so we bought a tent and enjoyed family staycations in the UK for a couple of years. However, whilst getting back on our financial feet, we decided to start collecting Avios points (or Airmails as they were then), ready to spend with our chosen airline, British Airways, on a long-haul holiday with the family in the future. It was a long wait but we were rewarded in the end…

Maximising airline reward schemes – getting started

A long term project

My advice would be to view maximising airline reward schemes as a long-term project. The longer you hold out before the redeeming your collected points, the bigger the reward will be using them on an exciting trip further down the line.

Redeeming points on short haul flights rarely gives you a good deal on what you are cashing in, and you are likely to be able to find a cheaper short-haul flight on one of the budget airlines.

We collected Airmiles/Avios for several years before deciding to redeem some of our points on trans-Atlantic flights with British Airways – 4 x return flights from London to Toronto. We only paid for the taxes, meaning that 4 of us flew out to Canada for a total of £800.

To make things even better, we should have been at the back of the plane but were upgraded on the way out – the only time its ever happened. We were hooked!

Pick an airline and sign up to their loyalty scheme

The next step in maximising airline reward schemes is to choose one airline, and commit to using that airline whenever practicable, in order to build your points up with that airline. Sometimes, this might mean not getting the cheapest flights in the short term, but will provide you with bigger benefits further down the line.

We chose to commit to using British Airways and signed up to the BA Loyalty Scheme. The reasons for choosing the BA Loyalty Scheme were because:

• As our national airline, British Airways have the largest range of flight options from the UK.
• Our closest airport is Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA), and at the time of signing up, British Airways operated a flight from Leeds Bradford Airport to London Heathrow, which was great for linking up with long-haul options from London.
• British Airways have been known for offering a high-quality service, although in this case, other airlines such as Emirates and Qatar are also excellent options.

More recently, we have also signed up to the KLM Blue Flying programme because British Airways stopped flying from Leeds Bradford Airport to Heathrow which cut down our options for connecting with long-haul flights. Now we can use KLM airlines to fly from Leeds Bradford Airport to Schiphol, which is an excellent international hub airport, which just gives us more options.

Research the best options for you

At the outset, think about which airline you might be able to use the most – consider where you live and which airlines fly from your nearest airports, or whether you’re prepared to travel further to access more flights from a larger airport hub.

Whichever airline reward scheme you choose to join, spend time looking at the details of the scheme on airline’s website to learn about the rewards offered and how to access the rewards – each one will be different.

Think about how you might be best able to maximise that particular reward scheme as an individual, couple or a family.

Final thoughts…

If you are someone who loves looking for deals on flights for each trip, then maximising airline reward schemes might not be for you, as you might not want to ‘lock yourself into a scheme’ and wait for the benefits further down the line, which us understandable.

Maximising an airline reward scheme is just another way of doing things, and contributing to your long term travel goals – investing your efforts in one, or two, airlines to unlock rewards which you might not otherwise of had. I talk more about some of the benefits we have created by signing up to the BA Loyalty Scheme in my next blog.

However you travel, enjoy your trip!

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Happy travels!