Mini podcast: Vitality-funded flights

The Fat Wallet Show with Kristia van Heerden

We received an excellent email from Jason Herron, who has found a way to make Discovery Vitality work hard for him.

I have a little love affair for Discovery miles and thought now that you are using Vitality, it could be useful to you and the listeners.

There is a bit of admin in getting the best Miles collection rate. You will need the following:

Discovery Credit Card

        Discovery Vitality

        Achieve gold status in vitality and eventually Diamond after 3 years of gold.

I know having a credit card goes against the teaching of your podcast, but have a minimal limit and pay it back in full every month.

When spending on the card you earn 1 mile for every R15 spent.

The key is to get to gold and spend at partner stores. You get 5x miles ie. 5 miles for every R15 spent. Then eventually Diamond status you get 10x miles so for every R15 you spend you get 10 miles.

The partner stores are very common stores that we all spend at anyway.

        Dis-chem/Clicks

        PicknPay/PicknPay liquor (wine for Simon)

        Shell/BP

        Computicket, Takealot, Ticketpro

    Nando’s

        Exclusive Books

        iStore/Incredible Connection

        Hirsch’s/Coricraft

        BabiesRus, ToysRus, Hamleys, Reggies

        Golfers Club/Pro Shop

        Vida e Cafe (I know you love coffee*)

The best thing about Discovery miles is they can easily be spent at most of these partners. For me, the key is to use them exclusively  on travel.

When you book on Kulula with Discovery and are on Diamond

status, you get 35% off the flight plus an additional 10% if you pay with your Discovery card. You can also use miles to offset the  balance of the flight. There have been many a time when I’ve had to pay a few cents on the credit card (free flight) as you can use miles in multiples of 10 only. 10 discovery miles is worth R1.00 with Kulula.

If you’d like to go international, Discovery miles can easily be converted to British Airways Avios or SAA Voyager miles on the Discovery site. Avios 1 to 1. Voyager 1.2 discovery miles per voyager mile. Also nice for upgrades.