I keep reading about people raving about Amex points being so worth it for flights and vacations, but also same people mention points in the hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions! Don't you get 1 MP per £1 spent? I know some transactions give you more, like forex transactions, but then you pay like a 3% forex fee, so it negates the effect.
In my experience, I've only used Avios to get £20 off of a flight, which I do maybe once a year, since I mostly fly low-cost. After £20 the tiers are ridiculous - like 20,000 points for £100 off or something, if not worse.
You might say I should just book flights with Avios, but that's barely any better. I still need to accumulate something like 100k MP to get a decent flight. Do you think I'd care about a few hundred quid after spending £100k??
For reference, I've barely used my points, and I've been a member for exactly 5 years. I currently have 33k points. I spend about £1,200 on my Amex a month, which is less than £15k a year.
Even if I put everything on my Amex, I only spend about £1,800 a month. Let's say I save points for 5 years - call it 100,000 points. According to this article, I can fly two people to NY return + £200. I've flown to NY for like £350 return with BA. Two people = £700. Call it an even £1000 with checked luggage and whatnot. So I end up saving £800 in 5 years?! How is that better than converting MP to Nectar points?
Make it make sense!