UK American Express Travel Prices?

[Julian]

Does anyone use the UK Amex Travel site much? From what I've seen it isn't actually very competitive on prices vs Kayak and other such sites and I'm wondering whether I'm missing anything, for instance I haven't registered as a member so my searches have been as a random visitor to the site. Does it give better pricing if one logs in as a member holding an Amex membership rewards card? Have I just been unlucky in what I've searched for? Something else or are its prices really not that good?

If anyone cares, the reason for my question is below.

I'm thinking of switching my allegiance in terms of what airline I use to take twice yearly trips from London to Cape Town. I had been using BA but am considering switching to Emirates which would affect the Amex card that I use. Right now I have a British Airways Amex Premium card and put absolutely everything that I can on it to maximise Avios points collection but if I switch to Emirates then I would switch to the Amex Gold rewards card which gives triple membership points for every pound spent via Amex Travel hence my question above.

- Julian

[Julian]

I can't answer about the AmEx card I'm afraid, or the price of AmEx bookings. But you really should move from BA to Emirates, I simply won't use BA any more and haven't done for years.

. I thought my explanation might get at least as much comment as my question.

The advantage of BA in my case is that they are the only option for a non-stop flight in a premium cabin (Thompson do also fly direct from Gatwick during high season but no premium cabins). I had a BA flight booked for this last Monday and was devastated that I had to cancel it due to a health problem. Now that I seem to be recovering I am looking at re-booking for a departure in a week or two's time and Emirates come up as a lot cheaper, even booking at this relatively short notice. I then started doing some research and thought wow, maybe I should be doing this anyway.

In a funny way my herniated disc might have helped me in seeing something that I would otherwise never have looked into. Life is a funny old thing.

- Julian

[Julian]

I think you'll be impressed. I travel on Emirates A380 fleet whenever possible. It's simply like modern air travel should be. But isn't. I'm not sure how important Avios miles are to you, and I can't compare directly. But the Emirates rewards scheme (I am silver) compared to Star Alliance (I am gold) is pretty darn stingy. But I still travel with Emirates as 1st choice. HTH.

Definitely does. Thanks. I also noticed that the Emirates rewards scheme is pretty stingy compared to BA/Avios but I did a quick back of envelope calculation yesterday based on my switching all of my spending to an Amex gold reward card (assuming they approve my application) and it's still good enough for me to end up, over a 2 year cycle when I make 2 return trips each year, ending up paying for 3 of those trips, getting the 4th on Skywards points and still having about 10,000 points left over so still a big help to my finances. That does however assume that I buy my 3 paid flights through Amex Travel which triples the rewards points earned for purchasing on the card hence my interest in whether the prices are as bad as they seem.

- Julian

[Lootman]

Definitely does. Thanks. I also noticed that the Emirates rewards scheme is pretty stingy compared to BA/Avios but I did a quick back of envelope calculation yesterday based on my switching all of my spending to an Amex gold reward card (assuming they approve my application) and it's still good enough for me to end up, over a 2 year cycle when I make 2 return trips each year, ending up paying for 3 of those trips, getting the 4th on Skywards points and still having about 10,000 points left over so still a big help to my finances. That does however assume that I buy my 3 paid flights through Amex Travel which triples the rewards points earned for purchasing on the card hence my interest in whether the prices are as bad as they seem.

Another idea is Qatar Air. All of the so-called "ME3" airlines are very good (Etihad being the third). But Qatar is in the OneWorld alliance, along with BA, so you can earn/spend Avios on Qatar (as well as Cathay, JAL, Qantas, American, Iberia, FinnAir etc).

They don't have 100 A380's flying around like Emirates does - it just has a few. But it's a modern fleet with 777's and some new A350's. And the inevitable change of planes in the middle of the night in Doha is more relaxed than Dubai, which gets very busy.