booking oneworld Explorer RTW ticket with Avios: not possible?
 

I called the Executive Club USA number and was just told by a BA agent that BA does not offer oneworld Explorer reward tickets paid with Avios. I am disappointed because I have over 300k Avios and just discovered that AA offers a maximum distance oneworld ticket in F for 330k miles.

Does anyone have more info on this?

Well they don't offer a oneworld explorer reward but they do offer a multi-airline award ticket based upon mileage and class of service. It is not a particularly good value:
http://www.britishairways.com/travel...e/public/en_gb
2x the above amounts for business, 3x for first.
Awards are unique to each individual program as is the earning structure.

You can try to mount several one-way tickets and see how much that would be. If you don't mix different partners on the same ticket it will cost much less than the multipartner table. BA awards are segment based, so it depends on your itinerary.
AA and BA use different schemes, so 300k AA miles generally do not give you the same as 300k Avios. It can be more or less depending on your itinerary.

I would consider that these could be good value if used well.

The oneworld explorer has a number of restrictions, which limit the value of the product.

For example, you cannot go back to another continent once you have left, and you have to go continuously east to west or west to east. There is also only one TATL and one TPAC permitted.

This limits the number of longhaul sectors, and hence valuable longhaul F and J coupons, that you can burn.

With Avios however, you could do this itinerary with 11 F or J sectors (including 10 longhaul and 4 ultralonghaul) for only 480k Avios in F and 320k Avios in J.

In comparison, LHR-SFO-LHR in F is 150k Avios and LHR-HKG-LHR is 180k, so for 480k Avios you could do six long F sectors (LHR-SFO-LHR-SFO-LHR-HKG-LHR).

Brilliant! Thank you. :)

I for one had no idea you could get such great value. Is this a flown ticket with a 12-month validity or just a proposal? Thanks.

Just a proposal!

:)

Thanks. I think I'll be investigating further.

Wow, that must be well hidden, as I've never seen it mentioned!

Where did you find that link please?

The circumference of the world at the equator is just under 25,000 miles so I would dare say you could probably fit a RTW itinerary within this band.

120,000 for Economy
180,000 for Premium
240,000 for J
360,000 for F

Also, the top award allows upto 50,000 miles, so thats twice RTW.
Doesn't seem that bad value to me! :)

160,000 for Economy
240,000 for Premium
360,000 for J
480,000 for F

"BA.com" -> "Executive Club" -> "Spending Avios" -> "How many Avios do I need?"

Scroll down to "Booking with partner airlines" and click the link "Avios prices for two or more oneworld airlines"

:)

Thanks, that's interesting, I never noticed that link before, as it only appears in the menu! :)

So how do these awards work? Has anyone ever done one?
Are you still restricted to award inventory?

Just book an award with 2 or more partners, it will calculate the price according to the table. Of course, award inventory, it is a normal award after all.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"The oneworld explorer has a number of restrictions, which limit the value of the product.

For example, you cannot go back to another continent once you have left, and you have to go continuously east to west or west to east. There is also only one TATL and one TPAC permitted.

This limits the number of longhaul sectors, and hence valuable longhaul F and J coupons, that you can burn."

The restrictions on a oneworld Explorer paid ticket are very different from the restrictions on AA's multi-partner, distance-based Explorer award. For example, AA's Explorer award has no restrictions on how many times one can cross the same continent or the same ocean.

I'm not sure what the restrictions are on BAEC's multi-partner award.

Interesting. 480k avios + how much in taxes & surcharges?

Its a while since I looked into (cash) OWE itineraries, certainly 18 months ago there was some good value; albeit not so much ex-LHR.

We've talked about them a number of times in the past. Here is one thread with some links:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...rtw-award.html

There was in the last year some great value, ex-KRT, but that pricing anomaly has been enhanced.