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.