Advice Please For A Newbie

[Nigelinoz]

Hi Everyone,
I have a question and was hoping that I could get some advice about the best use of some FF points.
This is the situation.My I.T, business is expanding and due to having picked up some new clients in Europe recently I have decided to open a
new office in London so will be spending about twelve months there as from late March 2009.
I am a member of various schemes,Qantas being the major one ,I have
125,000 points with them,I also have 10805 points with Virgin Atlantic
which I picked up from a one way economy flight to LHR from SYD in October.
I have recently joined the BMI program as when I fly in Europe I use them
quite a lot.
So my question is: Can I/should I transfer the VS points to BMI and thereby give
myself a boost in terms of getting rewards flights with that alliance?
and second question: should I try for a rewards flight with QF for the flight to London or do I pay for a seat on VS (Quoted $1750.00 OW) and
add the points to my flying club account to use in Europe?
Any and all comments would be most appreciated.

 

[sr81]

If you will be doing lots of intra Europe flying then I would focus my points with the carrier I am most likely to use. In this case it appears to be BMI.

BMI has pretty good redemtion rates though you need to be creative when using them for maximum value.

I would hestitate to purchase a one way fare as you will undoubtably want to return to Aus. in the next 12 months.

If you are not going to do a heap of flying then points may be moot as the cash savings made from flying with the cheapest carrier may offset any potential gain.

 

[Nigelinoz]

Thanks,sr81,for your advice,it is most appreciated.
I'm pretty sure that I wll make use of the BMI scheme as I do plan on doing a fair bit of flying in Europe.
I did think about using some of the VS points towards a miles plus money
return flight to Europe on Virgin but that means locking in a return date and I dont really want to do that so I might have to book an open return.
It just seems that the 10805 VS points are really not much use to me
as I need 52500 points for a one way reward flight SYD-LHR.
I wouldn't have flown with VS at all except that I needed to be in London
in a hurry earlier this year and Qantas didnt have a seat for me so I went
with a cheap Virgin flight and now I have points that are pretty useless
as my Amex is linked to Qantas!