The best milage sign-up bonus for a credit card. Ever.

[DangerMouse]

I must admit I am a little concerned about the BA FF program at the moment. With BA going on strike over the christmas break, is this going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back and result in bankruptcy?

[FUEGO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DangerMouse I must admit I am a little concerned about the BA FF program at the moment. With BA going on strike over the christmas break, is this going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back and result in bankruptcy?

Usually the airlines tend to keep the FF miles programs intact if it is merely a reorganization BK. Now if this is a liquidation, obviously there could be issues with the miles. Wonder if the one world alliance would step in to honor FF miles? I guess worst case I'll be out the $150 in annual fees if I can't cancel the cards.

I wonder what the union is trying to do, break the company? Get them some dole checks? I can't imagine striking throughout the Christmas and New Years holiday travel season will do much good for the bottom line of the company.

[DangerMouse]

BA staff have a history of striking at the peak periods of travel as they feel it is the only way to get the message across to management. Not sure if they are bright enough to realise ruining someone's christmas vacation just makes an extremely annoyed customer who is unlikely to be sympathetic to their cause.

Problem is BA is losing a lot of money and they are trying to introduce further cost saving measures, which results in reductions of crew inflight etc. There is some discussion of it on Flyer Talk in the BA forum.

I really don't have a lot of sympathy for flight crews as they do tend to be highly paid and I've never seen too many of them bust them balls on the flight to actually make it an experience you would want to remember. Qantas staff play similar games all the time, threatening strikes etc as they whine how hard they work.

If they did go belly up, I doubt that any of the partners would step in. I think the key is to be proactive and start using them for your proposed trips. I would imagine once you had the tickets in your hand for a flight with a partner airline you should be right.

[FUEGO]

Thanks for the heads up, Dangermouse. I'll have to keep and eye on this situation. May move the HNL trip up some.

[lswswein]

Hi Fuego
I also signed up for the Card. The appln says an annual fee of $75. Did you get accessed the annual fee? They applied it to me. I am debating waiting for the miles to show up in my account before calling them up and asking if they will waive the annual fee. Have you heard anything about the annual fee being waived?

Thanks
-h

[FUEGO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lswswein Hi Fuego I also signed up for the Card. The appln says an annual fee of $75. Did you get accessed the annual fee? They applied it to me. I am debating waiting for the miles to show up in my account before calling them up and asking if they will waive the annual fee. Have you heard anything about the annual fee being waived? Thanks -h

Yes; I was charged the $75 annual fee Jan 1 2010. It is kind of screwy how they assess it. They only apply it on the 1st of the month.

I'd check flyertalk.com to see if others are getting out of the $75 fee. I think the consensus was that they were not waiving it. But it is worth a shot. I'll probably just pay it unless the flyertalk people say it is likely to be waived. Let me know if you get it waived.

[mef623]

Fuego, what's your handle on FT? I spend a good portion of my day there and am "mikeef."

Mike

[FUEGO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mef623 Fuego, what's your handle on FT? I spend a good portion of my day there and am "mikeef." Mike

I'm a lurker there, never signed up, never posted. Yet. I just figured out this mileage stuff a few months ago. Started churning the citicards for 30,000 miles a pop, and now the deal ended. Between the cards I obtained from citicards and the BA 100,000 offer, we got somewhere around 410,000 miles. Though 80,000 is already spent on a March trip to Buenos Aires and Uruguay. Just booked our hotel in Buenos Aires using a 30 pound off 2 nights coupon x2 (four nights total). Nice hotel for $36 a night.

That's another slick deal - thomascook.com has 30 pound off 2 nt reservations for hotels. You can book multiple reservations back to back too. Some places, like Las Vegas, you can find free rooms (actually, about 60 pence a night ).

[DangerMouse]

FT is a great site. I find it especially useful for finding out what the latest is on hotel deals. If I am thinking about going anywhere that's the first place I stop by to see if someone has a deal going that I may benefit from.

[FUEGO]

The British Airways 100,000 miles sign up bonus card is once again available for those interested:

British Airways Visa - A World of Opportunities

Enjoy!

[FUEGO]

I tried to get the $75 fees waived on our 2 BA cards. I sent a message through their secure email at chase. I told them a phone CSR had previously informed me that the fee would be waived.

No go on both cards. One card I got a generic "can't waive fee, it was properly disclosed in application". Other card, the CSR wrote back a lengthy form email that basically said the same thing, but explained how generous the 100,000 pts was and that trying to get out of the fee now is trying to go against the terms of the agreement.

Fair enough. I pay $150 and got 200,000 points, the deal I bargained for. The points are in my account now.

[WanderALot]

Thanks for the note Fuego. I just signed up for the card this past weekend and it looks like I'm already approved. I should have signed up DW too, but didn't and now it looks like they have removed the link. Hopefully they'll reopen it.

BA's website leaves a lot to desired.

Edit: Actually, it's reduced to 30K miles.

[FUEGO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by WanderALot BA's website leaves a lot to desired.

Yes, it isn't the best. Just wait for the "fun" of trying to find flights you can redeem for a reward. There's no easy way to tell what city pairs have flights at all. I search and get the "no flights" message, but I can search different dates. However I can't tell if the problem is "no flights between my two city pairs" or "no flights on the dates I selected in particular". Probably gonna require some serious reading on flyertalk and then calling BA customer service to figure this out.

[WanderALot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FUEGO Yes, it isn't the best. Just wait for the "fun" of trying to find flights you can redeem for a reward. There's no easy way to tell what city pairs have flights at all. I search and get the "no flights" message, but I can search different dates.

Yeah, I've been trying to run some scenarios for Buenos Aires and kept getting rejected until I realized it's because they had the outgoing flight on one airline and the returning flight on another. I had about 20K miles on BA about 4 years back that expired. That would have been nice to have back with this offer!

[FUEGO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by WanderALot Yeah, I've been trying to run some scenarios for Buenos Aires and kept getting rejected until I realized it's because they had the outgoing flight on one airline and the returning flight on another. I had about 20K miles on BA about 4 years back that expired. That would have been nice to have back with this offer!

I know flights to BA connect through Miami and they are on American (at least from my home airport on the east coast).

But the way the British Air rewards booking works, if it is American down there and then Mexicana or something else coming back, then that is 2 partner airlines and you have to book the oneworld award for more points.

[Texas Proud]

An update on the fees... from my sister who signed up ....

the guy on the phone to her said they can not waive the fees based on the contract they signed with BA... maybe the script has changed... or maybe he is telling the truth...

Is there ANYONE who actually has had the fee removed Not, I heard from someone whos aunts, sisters nephew got it waived...

[two4theroad]

Thanks for the heads up on this great deal. I got the card and the 100,000 miles. I used it for 2 tickets IAH to BUD/PRG to IAH in April. It was 48000 points per ticket plus $195 each because I did not have enough points. Western Europe is 50,000 and Eastern Europe is 60000 miles per ticket. The taxes were $303 each. Yikes! Still for under $1000 we got 2 open jaw US to EU tickets. I was not finding them for under $2400 anywhere so I am a happy camper.
I did have to call customer service to make the reservation as there is no way to book open jaw on the internet. We also have to drive to Houston to fly out of IAH as all the Dallas flights were full on the days we wanted. No big deal for the savings. The rep I got was in Florida, she was very helpful, pleasant and I could understand every word she said.

Thanks again,
2FER

[FUEGO]

Good to know the live person CSR's are good and easy to deal with. I have a mix of AA miles and BA miles, so need to figure out what I can actually get on BA in order to use AA miles for everything else (in order to optimize point usage).

[WanderALot]

We applied for DW's call yesterday and I asked about the waiver (the web link doesn't work anymore but there's a toll free number that still does; I can dig it up if someone is interested). The guy said there was no way to waive the fee. It looks like certain cards have a way of getting the fees waived by the CSR but this card doesn't have the option.

Can't wait to get our 200K miles! Does anyone know how the mileage rewards work for traveling with a 2 year old? Do we pay the mileage that a regular adult would work?

With all these people getting 100K miles, there's probably some mileage dilution going on!

[FUEGO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by WanderALot With all these people getting 100K miles, there's probably some mileage dilution going on!

That's what I'm afraid of. Apparently Japan Airlines is filing bankruptcy Tuesday. They are the major asian carrier on the oneworld alliance that includes BA and American Airlines. Rumor has it that Japan Air may leave oneworld and join Delta's international alliance. Meaning my plans to use the BA 100,000 miles for asian travel may be severely limited.