Having wiped out my Avios earlier in the year, to enjoy a first class flying experience, I’m currently sat on rather a big pile of them.  With more to come.

Theyve arrived through a variety of ways.  Online surveys.  Credit card spend.  Topcashback redemptions, a couple of a Tesco Clubcard vouchers, Avis car hire.  Not to mention the 25,000 or so picked up for actually flying to Santiago and Easter Island.

From a starting point of nil I’m now sat on 70,000.  There’s an additional 34,000 due from credit card spends and the Australia trip should generate another 25,000.

Before the year is out I’ll have 135,000 points or thereabouts.  And if I spend another £5,000 on my BA Amex credit card before December I’ll qualify for a BOGOF Avios flight voucher.

Which raises the question of what to do with these points.  8,000 will buy return flights from London to many parts of Europe.  But I don’t really like fagging it down to London when Ryanair will take me directly from Manchester or Leeds to the same part of Europe.

This brings long haul into play.  But I tend to only do long haul in business class these days so the price goes up.  125,000 will buy return business class flights to Vegas, LAX, San Francisco or perhaps Vancouver amongst others.  Utilising a BOGOF voucher gets two of us on board.

And that’s probably my target.  But then comes the next challenge.

BA release their seats 355 days in advance.  They release two posh seats per flight.  These get booked up at a minute past midnight 355 days ahead.  Other reward seats may get added on an ad-hoc basis but there are no hard and fast rules on this.  And I’m not convinced I should be booking anything a year in advance.

So for now I need to continue my points accrual.  Consider a big credit card spend (despite income being limited to around £900 a month).  And bide my time before booking anything.

The new route to Nashville may be a slightly different opportunity.  Or perhaps building up the points further to get to Thailand or similar.

But while I’m finding the Avios accrual game quite good fun, spending the things at best value needs thought, patience, flexibility on destination and flexibility on dates.

If you’re going to play, hàve a strategy that gives such flexibility of you’ll be frustrated rather a lot!

The CT Scan With Glowing Revels