PaulJWoodgate

Hi FTers

Apologies for the seemingly random assortment of questions; I am just trying to make some plans for 2013 to try and make the most of my BAEC Silver membership, AVIOS and the OW network. I have a few queries I'd be grateful for any advice on:

American Airlines Instant Upgrade fares - I appreciate that they are less flexible than other premium fares but have people found in practice any other things the traveller should be aware of eg getting a poorer deal when it comes to disruption?

UuA - is this doable on a multi city itinerary eg LHR to JFK, MIA to LHR? I think I read in the sticky on this topic that you can, subject to availability, but I just wanted to see if people had practical experience of this. I ask as BA.com seems to behave differently if you book a multi city than a straight return. I'm not sure whether this relates to fare conditions or is just one of those issues with BA.com.

Finnair Business verses Quantas Premium Economy to Australia - they seem to be in a similar price ballpark. I've only ever read good things about Quantas's PE; that said Finnair appears to be a low fare for business class. I would be grateful for any wisdom people can give about the relative merits of the two.

Thanks in advance and Happy New Year in anycase!

cheers


Paul

KARFA

I can help with this - or at least tell you about my experience. Booked an open jaw return MAN-PEK and back from HKG-MAN last year. I knew there was availability to UuA from WTP in to CW for outbound and inbound. You can't seem to do a multi-city in the "book with cash and upgrade with avios" option, so I booked fully expecting to be able to upgrade straight away in MMB. Anyway, when trying to do it online I got the usual error message to call the exec club line and had to do the upgrade over the phone instead.

baileysserpant

PaulJWoodgate - - Welcome to FT!!

Your best bet regarding the UUA is to read the sticky. in my experience You may need to call to book it but you can do it for multicity subject to availability.

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk, PaulJWoodgate, welcome indeed to the BAEC forum. It is good to see you here, and hopefully you will continue to post here over the next few weeks, not least because it appears you have some interesting travel plans. The experts here are often generous with their advice, and it helps the many that lurk in the shadows. The only thing I would suggest is that if your real name is close to your screen name, there may be good reasons to change it to something slightly more anonymous.

In general if you have an irrop on AA, the staff do what they can to get you on to something similar. My experience is that if it is weather related they will just plonk you on the next available aircraft, and it may well involve a downgrade (no distinction on what sort of ticket you hold) and that's it. It is made difficult for them since many of AA's frequent flyers get upgraded to First in the final 24 hours, so there are few empty spaces left for irrops. However there is one specific issue for Instant Upgrades and irrops: the upgrade is for one class only, and in most cases that means taking you from Y to F. But certain AA services within the US are 3 class. So if your new route takes you on to one of those services you would only be entitled to Business class (which is no fun and not many TPs!). It is one of the risk of TPs runs on AA - you may simply be out of luck and you cannot rely on AA being generous in terms of getting your TPs back after the event.

You can UuA, but it may have to involve ringing BAEC when you spot availability in normal redemptions. The more complex the routing the less likely you can do it online. But being multi city does not rule it out of contention for UuA.

Though I've seen Qantas (beware the U!) PE, but not ridden in it. I would say Finnair's Business is significantly better, but significantly below Club World, or indeed its Qantas equivalent. I think it is fair to say that Finnair and Royal Jordanian's business products are among the lowest in oneworld, so there is an element of you get what you pay for. Note that Finnair has two types of seat, slopey and truly flat. Finnair often change their fleet at the last moment (and are dreadful with irrops) so you lose BA's consistency in this area. I would fly Finnair J (and have often done so), and would not fly Qantas PE (and never have).

Sixth Freedom

Welcome to FT PaulJWoodgate. ^

acbs

I have just done a LHR-LAX returning from SFO-LHR and had to upgrade over the telephone. It cannot be done on MMB. I hope someday it will be possible since I happen to do these type of flights more than normal returns.

T8191

As many here know, I do that all the time. Multi-City with UuA is simply beyond the capabilities of ba.com. However, provided there's availability on each sector (check with dummy bookings) it all gets sorted painlessly when you phone BAEC with your requirements [with all data to hand, of course].

And a warm welcome from me to "Mr Anonymous" of Acton (possibly)

PaulJWoodgate

Thanks everyone for the prompt responses. Some useful consensus on the UuA question and some helpful feedback on the other points from corporate wage slave. Cheers!