Sorely tempted by 2014 Ocean Voyages

[AmoMondo]

the MSC UK site appears to have some great prices available on some of the early 2014 repo cruises. For example I could get a cat 11 balcony cabin on the Musica sole occupancy for 15 nights from Domincan Republic to genoa for only £540 - a bargain or what!

 

Only sticking point I can see would be sourcing a reasonably priced one wY air fare to DR. Mind you that would not have to be that cheap given the price of the cruise.

 

There are others up for South America as well.

 

Think I'll phone MSC to see if there's any chance of them doing a flight from the UK........

[Skipper Tim]

the MSC UK site appears to have some great prices available on some of the early 2014 repo cruises. For example I could get a cat 11 balcony cabin on the Musica sole occupancy for 15 nights from Domincan Republic to genoa for only £540 - a bargain or what!

 

Only sticking point I can see would be sourcing a reasonably priced one wY air fare to DR. Mind you that would not have to be that cheap given the price of the cruise.

 

There are others up for South America as well.

 

Think I'll phone MSC to see if there's any chance of them doing a flight from the UK........

 

I have to recommend Avios for those long-haul one-way flights. If you don't have any, get one or more of the Amex cards that have a generous sign-up bonus (see headforpoints.com). My flight to Sao Paulo cost just €54 + (free) 25,000 Avios from Madrid and £33 from Manchester to Madrid with Ryanair. If you have your own business, there is currently a 40,000 Avios sign-up bonus on the business gold Amex card.

 

I must admit to being a little irritated that despite being coerced into signing up to MSC's email a dozen or so times, they haven't let me know that 2014 reps have gone on sale. I will be looking into them next! Thanks for the tip!

 

Is the Musica your favourite?

[AmoMondo]

I must get my head round the Avios then!. I'm a member of BAs exec club but never gotten around to working out all the tricks with Avios compared to air miles. I earned 2000 last week with 2 trips to London and will have a flight to London once per month for the rest of the year. Also likely to have to go to Mumbai with work so that should help clock them up.

 

I read somewhere recently (probably BA business mag) that you can get Avios instead of Hilton points, so I'll need to investigate that as well. Do any supermarkets let you earn them?

 

I really don't understand why MSC keep having that pop up come upmto sign for their email letter. I've also signed up several times and only very occasionally send me details of promotions. Only noticed the 2014 sailings by chance when I was looking at whether the Sinfonia was going back to South Africa, after someone was asking about it on here.

[Skipper Tim]

Most of our Airmiles/Avios have come from Tesco. 1 Clubcard point = 2.4 Avios. £1 of ordinary expenditure gives 1 Clubcard point. However, it would take forever to earn enough points to fly that way. Tesco mail bonus vouchers every quarter, e.g. "25 bonus points when you spend £1 or more on...", have frequent promotions on individual items, e.g. 500 bonus points when you buy two ink jet cartridges, etc. etc.. That is why headforpoints.com is so useful - there are too many points-earning opportunities for any one person to keep track of. The site is focussed on Avios not Tescos.

 

Most of the hotel points schemes seem to be interchangeable with Avios. I don't know about Hilton, but the Starwood Preferred Guest points exchange at 1:1 until you have 20,000 or more when you get 5,000 Avios bonus.

 

Headforpoints is a steep learning curve to begin with. I initially signed up for the weekly summary by email and deeply regretted it when I missed out on some stunning deals that came and went before the email. Now I check it daily, much like your posts :-)

[AmoMondo]

Thanks Tim.

 

Well I've found out via BA.com that I can automatically convert my Priority Rewards and Tesco club points to Avios and that I can convert every 10,00 HHonours points to 1,000 Avios.

 

I've forgotten my BA login details but once I get my account reset I'll get cracking getting everything I can converted to Avios.

 

Also downloaded the Avios iPad app, so I can watch for point earning offers.

 

Still need to work out now the BA Avios account ties up with the Avios account I've set up via the app, but that's thisnweekends research!

[Skipper Tim]

Still need to work out now the BA Avios account ties up with the Avios account I've set up via the app, but that's thisnweekends research!

 

Avios is the common currency between BA Executive Club, Iberia Plus and Avios (formerly Airmiles). You can move Avios between them free of charge, instantly and as many times as you want. They call this, a little obscurely, "Combine my Avios". The one restriction is that you can't move Avios to Iberia Plus until the latter account has been open for 90 days. An Iberia Plus account doesn't cost anything to open and there is no flying requirement so you should open an Iberia Plus account just in case you want that one-way to/from South America.

 

The huge advantage of Iberia Plus redemptions over Avios.com/BAEC is avoidance of UK passenger departure taxes, which combined with the 'fees' on a long-haul flight can be similar to the full fare. Of course, this means buying a connecting flight to (usually) Madrid but for those of us who don't live in London, this is hardly any different to connecting at Heathrow with BA.

 

For flights under 2,000 miles with BA and Iberia there is the 'Reward Flight Saver' which replaces the taxes and fees with a flat £15/£20 economy/business cost each way. That will get you to Moscow, Istanbul or Cyprus and all points nearer. With the old Airmiles, short-haul redemptions were considered a waste, now business-class Reward Flight Saver redemptions are considered the best value.

 

Had there been availability, I would have booked business class to Sao Paulo for double the Avios (50,000) but the same taxes (€54). That is around £4,000 of fare for a little work points-hunting. I am still looking out to see if business class becomes available. Advantages? Well it is an over 11 hours night-flight with a flat bed and full dinner in the lounge in Madrid before. As is, I have pre-booked a seat with extra legroom in economy, free of charge. I may have to get my money's worth from the galley and sleep when I get to the ship :)