Air miles? Credit card companies?

[ffutures]

Natwest are my Mastercard provider for historical reasons - I used to have a Natwest bank account and never bothered to move the card. Over the years the card has accumulated a few thousand air miles which I've only used once, for a trip to Jersey.

Now Natwest say that they're ending Airmiles and switching to a service called YourPoints, which is (a) run by them and (b) costs £3 a month unless you spend more than £1000 in that month. My feeling on this is that they are taking the piss. I certainly don't intend to join the scheme. Airmiles have some sort of scheme with Lloyds TSB, but it doesn't look very favourable.

So I'm now wondering if there is any way to convert air miles to some other points scheme or otherwise make use of them. All other things being equal I'll probably look at transferring to Waitrose's card, which gives you a small discount in their stores and I think John Lewis, unless someone can suggest a better alternative, but this still leaves me with a few thousand air miles (not enough for anywhere I want to go in the near future) and no prospect of getting more. Is there some way of giving them to someone else, or using them to aid a charity or something?

Comments

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

I am pretty certain that you can give air miles to someone else - including charities - but I dont know how. They have a website you know :-)

I have a NatWest Visa - which I pay 12 quid a year for and hardly use. Like you I ought to bin it. I'm happy with a Morgan Stanley Mastercard - 1% cash back and the online banking doesnt suck.

But most importantly Morgan Stanley give me a credit card with a Union Jack Flag on it :-)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Took a look at the air miles site but couldn't see anything about giving them away. I'll have another look when I've more time.

[maviscruet.livejournal.com]

Oh stronghold has arrived. How much money do I owe you - and how would you like it delivered?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It was 2 quid plus postage, wasn't it? The postage worked out at 80p (72p stamps plus a jiffy bag), it isn't really worth writing a cheque and paying postage - if you have paypal send it to me as marcus dot rowland at gmail dot com, otherwise we'll work out something else.

[maviscruet.livejournal.com]

Done to pay pal. Sorry about the delay......

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

Dunno how it's done in the UK, but just about every US airline has the ability to take unused airmiles and donate them to charity, usually for Angel Flight or the Make-A-Wish foundation. I routinely dump my American Airlines miles in the charity box because I never seem to accumulate enough to use before they expire.

Same here

[nojay.livejournal.com]

I've accumulated and used BA airmiles over the years via my own NatWest card. They don't expire so there's no rush to get rid of them. If you've got a thousand or more then you can get to places like Amsterdam and other locations in Europe for just the cost of the airport taxes and such, not too shabby a deal. You might like to investigate foreign gaming cons within reach of your airmiles, perhaps, and use them up that way.

Re: Same here

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That's a possibility, of course, but I really don't like flying if there are alternatives - I really don't like flying, period - and I've yet to find a good excuse to go to Europe via the Channel Tunnel, so I'd probably take that route first.

Chunnel

[soren-nyrond.livejournal.com]

I've yet to find a good excuse to go to Europe via the Channel Tunnel -- Have you considered the lure of excellent (french) food&drink only 15 minutes (by car) from the Shuttle terminal, at City-Europe -- several restaurants, 2 tea-shops (one very English), a hypermarket (for bringing your cheese etc back with you), & a booze store if your tastes go that way.

Unfortunately zero by way of laboratory-equipment stores.

Soren the Lurker, his sig

Re: Chunnel

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'm not actually a foody to any great extent and I don't own a car, so not a particularly good idea. I'm thinking more in terms of a European Worldcon, preferably somewhere easily accessible by rail.