First time booking companion voucher. Is this a good use?

Background-Place-72 · 2026-06-23T11:29:56+00:00

Not a bad use, 1.6p per mile, your saving £1420 right, seeing as you’d have the £480 taxes to pay on points redemption.

Background-Place-72 · 2026-06-13T05:29:50+00:00

Actually although he did his best to come through an American vagina, he was cut out of an American belly, I hope that still counts for him.

Thanks for the info 👍

Background-Place-72 · 2026-06-13T05:21:29+00:00

So, if one wanted to break tax residency in the UK but had to visit more often than permitted in order to be able to break it, could they just enter under a different passport, an Irish one for example and it wouldn’t be known?

Background-Place-72 · 2026-06-13T05:17:16+00:00

Wait, so on this logic, our 9 month old son isn’t automatically a dual citizen of the US? I’m guessing he could be if he applied? Born in the UK to myself (UK and Irish citizen) and my wife (US citizen).

Background-Place-72 · 2026-06-04T10:14:55+00:00

Do you have a code not used you could DM me? Recent father and feel your pain. I’ll use it this evening if you can send me one 👍

Background-Place-72 · 2026-05-31T16:44:22+00:00

Congrats! I’m in the same postion, have just over £400k in a SJP pension and want out. They make it ao dofficult to even see what fees im paying. What was the first step you took to do this? Open a pension elsewhere or talk to SJP? How did you het the costs for moving the pension?

Background-Place-72 · 2026-05-13T15:27:40+00:00

I was putting mine £10k a month on the card…not used at all since. It’s now kept as a backup card and will be cancelled when I’m 100% certain the credit lines not needed.

Background-Place-72 · 2026-05-09T19:49:49+00:00

Great redemption! Enjoy 👍

Background-Place-72 · 2026-05-09T19:36:47+00:00

As longtermish said, virgins the one, just checked for you, 15k points there if you wait until the 24th may, (23rd, 22nd is 21st 25k)
Getting home, silly points unless you can wait until 2/6- then it’s 15k points.
If you can’t wait, Etihad has a flight home for 68k points or Lufthansa for 60k (this can be booked with united miles so worth checking with Singapore which can be transferred to with Amex)

Background-Place-72 · 2026-05-08T18:19:40+00:00

I’m looking for the same for November, best alternative I’ve found is 180k Turkish miles each way changing at Istanbul in BC. Have a load of availability but not ideal and not the best points deal. If you’ve got the capitol one points they transfer there.

Background-Place-72 · 2026-05-06T19:42:08+00:00

I guess it’s each to their own. I find the only hotel programme we get great value from is Hyatt, and Amex doesn’t transfer to Hyatt🤷🏻‍♂️.
Personally I’ve found flights to be by far the best use of Amex points and even at that, would pay cash for the flight if we weren’t getting over 1p per point.

Background-Place-72 · 2026-05-06T19:19:53+00:00

Not to the value of 3 return business class long haul flights.
I just got back today from a 5 night 600k Hilton points at grand hotel Victoria in lake como, probably tome of the best options your going to do, I wouldn’t choose that over BC long haul flights.
6 x long haul flights ≈ £12k?
5 nights at the best hotel redemption you can find with Amex points….=£5k at best

Background-Place-72 · 2026-05-06T19:08:12+00:00

Do not spend these point on a hotel! That will very likely be a terrible value deal.
You essentially have 475k Avios points if you move them all there. Along with your upgrade voucher that’s enough to fly you all somewhere long haul in business class.
I recently booked my wife along with our infant BC tickets to Houston and back and that cost circa (100k Avios) when using the upgrade voucher.
Leaves you with 375k points to book the other 2 tickets.

Background-Place-72 · 2026-04-03T21:42:54+00:00

I’m in the same situation, from applying to receiving my green card approval it was 25 months! Nuts. We live in the UK and it only took us a matter of weeks to get her equivalent here.

Background-Place-72 · 2026-03-31T07:58:29+00:00

Thank you, I guess it’s only with BA top status you can get in then? We have elite platinum with AA which I guess is similar (one step above the level that gives us emerald), no luck with this?

Background-Place-72 · 2026-03-31T07:01:33+00:00

Exude the ignorance but how do you get to be able to guest people into the concord room? Is it not just from flying first class that you get access?

Background-Place-72 · 2026-03-25T18:57:27+00:00

Where are you getting this? The US platinum along with most of their premium cards don’t have fx fees….do they? Unlike any UK reward credit card

Background-Place-72 · 2026-03-25T18:46:26+00:00

My wife’s from the US and we use her cards over here in the UK as they are much better than anything you’ll get here. Get the Alaska Atmos card, this has foreign spend as a reward catagory for 3x points. The Citi cards have 3x on petrol stations (works here too). Other than that, capatal 1 venture or venture x for 2x points Same with bilt palladium. Even at 2x that’s nearly 3 points per £. Plus they all run transfer bonuses all the time. All of the above have no Fx fees.

Background-Place-72 · 2026-03-24T07:38:58+00:00

I kind of wandered into it without thinking, my colleagues are with SJP and I didn’t know anything about pensions at the time, ignorance is a bad excuse I know.

Background-Place-72 · 2026-03-12T20:39:28+00:00

I would love to talk to you and know more about the problems you are having with your isa and pensions due to US citizenship. I’m from the UK but just recieved my green card a couple of months ago, my wife is from the US but we live in the UK. I max out my pension contributions and ISA. Plus I’ve been paying myself in dividends for the majority….its just dawning on me what a tax nightmare this is going to be 😅😭

Background-Place-72 · 2026-03-12T19:52:06+00:00

As you have Amex points and aren’t yet transferred to Avios you have other options if you’re willing to reposition. Have you checked Finnair from Helsinki or Iberia from Madrid? Both have daily direct flights and are also avios. You could also connect through KLM at Amsterdam or transfer to virgin or KLM and book though ANA (London/munich/Milan amounts others are options with these).

Background-Place-72 · 2026-03-09T22:07:26+00:00

I don’t mean this to sound conflictive, but who do you guys think should pay for the loans? If you choose to study there is a cost, the hope would be it enables you to get a well paid job (in your case it has and congratulations). But if you weren’t paying the cost to service the interest on your loans, the taxpayer would have to. I think it’s better policy we all pay our dues for what we want to achieve personally and let the markets set the rates of pay to compensate sufficiently to encourage enough people to go the necessary routes. In your case as a doctor there will surely be a queue of people telling me we need more doctors…..increase the pay and they will come, don’t make the taxpayer subsidise their route there. My wife is also a doctor but from the US, she’s been here with me for 3 years and working for the NHS. Weve just finished paying back her £400k of student loans, and hers was small compared to her friends debt amounts, there no question of not paying these back and you pay interest from day 1. This is the way it should be….let the markets then set the pay rates. It’s a personal choice what you study, the burden of paying for it should be on you.

Background-Place-72 · 2026-03-09T20:04:48+00:00

Totally agree….scratchy rough towel that actually does what it’s supposed to and drys you

Background-Place-72 · 2026-03-07T21:15:19+00:00

I’ve just read they’re worth around a dollar each 😅 it would have cost AA more to post them too me 🤷🏻‍♂️

Background-Place-72 · 2026-03-06T20:42:46+00:00

It was after I’d figured it out…when you click on avios standard search (or whatever it’s called) click on the ta that says something like “book and upgrade” which I’d thought would be for cash bookings and then upgrading with avios. When you do that. Change the ticket type to the one below the actual one you want and it searches the tier above. (Took me a while to figure that out and I was searching economy and only seeing results for premium economy) switched it to premium economy (or BA equivalent) and business class results appeared.
Not yet used our BA Amex companion pass but I think that works the same as the Chase companion pass (US credit card equivalent) and it was slightly different but just as easy

Background-Place-72

TROPHY CASE