Air miles - are they worth trying to accumulate?

[Trampolineissues]

I know nothing about air miles. Nothing at all. My youngest brother lives in Australia and we have three chn and would love - one day - to go and see him. We are both middle earners as civil servants so no chance we’ll ever be able to afford the tickets for 5 of us.
someone suggested that I should try to accumulate them by getting a CC that offers them and pay it off monthly.
I’ve looked at cards and I can see you could do that - but I’m finding it hard to understand the value and use of them. And whether I could save for years then use them or have to spend them?
can anyone help?!

I use a Virgin credit Card. I buy absolutely everything on it and pay off at the end of every month by direct debit so I am never in debt. This gives me points (air miles). For example, I am flying to Tampa next month for £250 return plus 25,000 points. If you look at the Martin Lewis website he will have recommendations for similar cards.

I have limited experience with air miles but we’ve never been able to use them - either they’ve expired, or the flights we wanted to use them on weren’t available / or the airline prices were so high that the air miles wouldn’t have touched sides, and flights with an airline on a different points system was cheaper!

However, my friend collects avios points and has had great success with booking a long haul flight for 2 adults 2 kids (a few years ago) for I think less than half the price. But she booked v early and I think it was before her kids were in school so there was flexibility with the dates.

I have an Amex credit card and collect Avios points for BA, can also collect Avios through buying wine selections or doing online surveys. I have used the “free” companion flight plus avios on a number of trips, but crucially it’s for just myself and DH and we can go outside school holidays. Plus I don’t think BA flies to Australia themselves and it costs to have a card you can use for code share partners.

However I do have a colleague who swears by Virgin so may be worth looking into.

I use the Virgin Card - I have done very very well over the years.
There is a nack to knowin the best value to get from them.

I have flow Virgin Upper Class to NYC, Honk Kong and Orlando multiple times.

When you have the miles, it is best to call up. I have found that it is has been best to purchase an economy ticket, and then use the points as an upgrade option. The taxes can be quite significant, so build that into the equation. You also get a companion ticket if you hit certain spend limits.

The virgin UC lounge in Heathrow is another level of luxury.

I would look at https://www.headforpoints.com/

A fountain of knowledge and information, with a forum that answers any questions that you may have.

I think British Airways executive club can also offer some good deals, but not one that I have explored

Thanks so much everyone, I’ll have a look round. It’s the expiration and limits that concern me as I’d be hoping to save them for a few years

Avios doesn’t expire as long as you keep accruing them, so if you keep using your credit card, it’ll be fine. I have also linked my Sainsburys nectar card and Uber accounts so also get points from these.

If you log in to the portal, there is a ‘pay with Avios’ option so you can see how many seats are available on any given flight, how many points are needed and what tax you need to pay. I’ve been doing short-haul Europe for 9,000 points and 50p each way! Alternatively you do a regular booking and then reduce the price of your tickets by using Avios. The more Avios you use, the more is taken off.

One thing to flag, desirable destinations like Australia are very hard to get reward seats on. It would be unlikely that you would be able to get 5 on one flight as they only allocate a few seats as reward seats.

I spent quite a lot of time looking at this about 6 months ago as I wanted to know if any of the 'rewards' credit cards were worth it. In the end I ended up back where I started, sticking to the AmEx cashback card. Of all the calculations I did it always came out on top.