JohnnyColombia

I had never realised this before, always assumed that if rewards were not published at the lowest value then they would not be available in partner programmes. The lowest value for BOG MIA is 38,000kms return. Hence for it to feature on a partner scheme then it must be available for 19,000kms each way on LAN.com, or so I always assumed.

Not the case it transpires. If I want to go BOG MIA tomorrow and then come back on 21st February, on LAN this would cost 79,000kms

Say I want to book that on BA.com I can get seats for 10,000 each way plus the same taxes. Furthermore, an "Avio" is basically a mile so that is 32,200kms. Less than the cheapest saver award on LAN apart from during promotions, and half of the cost of what is available on LAN

For one final annoyance. I had always assumed that a higher cost in LANPASS kms implied they were selling out. However British Airways has 7 seats available for 10,000 Avios available on both of my notional trip dates.

45,000 kms seems to be the cut off for this route. If it is showing as 55,000kms then I cannot get a seat on BA. So theoretically, if a ticket costs 90,000kms on LAN then I can still get it for 20,000 Avios

miikkak

Very interesting. By the way BA sometimes charges too much taxes for some LAN award flights. For instance BA seems to charge Ecuadorian IVA when travelling ex GYE or UIO which we don't have to pay when travelling with award tickets.

Mwenenzi

Earn and burn do not have the same value between ffp's
So you cannot say one is "cheaper" than the other

JohnnyColombia

No I cannot, but I can say

1) Where LAN is trying to tell us that by charging us more it is giving us access to extra inventory, this is not true.

2) Although 1 Avios = 1.61km and is therefore "cheaper" I acknowledge that in some circumstances LAN might be cheaper than AA

sdsearch

That's presumably with the current BA chart. What about the BA chart that goes into effect on April 28?

http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/...b/club-changes

If you're only concerned with economy, it's not changing much, but BA Avios business class redemption is going up by 50% on EXE-US or SCL-US, for example.

BA is often cheaper than its partner airlines for nonstop short flights in economy. But it charges per flight leg (not per total distance), so it shoots up the moment you do a connection.

And it has always been barely competitive for business class flights (let alone second-class-up flights in the US which are classed first class there but BA Avios prices them like third-class up!), and now with the April 28 changes it will be uncompetitve for higher classes of service.

So it depends on which class you're booking and whether it's a nonstop or connection flight you're booking as to how competitive BA Avios is with its partners.

JohnnyColombia

BA and LAN both have distance based award charts where all legs must be "paid for" depending on their length.

In response to earn and burn rates, a comment raised by Mwenenzi too, after the BAEC changes then they will pretty much be aligned. Save for AA falling into line on the BA side and any incidental earning.

I am not familiar with BA bands but supposing BOG MIA is band 4 (10,000 Avios) then this will be rising to 12,500 Avios for permanent peak partner rewards. That's about 40200 kms which is still only a whisker above LAN's elusive 38,000 km minimum for BOG MIA RT. Notwithstanding, 38,000 km redemptions are hard to find.

Given the example above in the OP, my flight would still be costing me 25,000 Avios as a BA award compared to 79,000 kms on LAN

As for business, on that same route. BOG MIA in J is 40,000 Avios (64,400kms) compared to a minimum of 100,000 kms on LAN same taxes regardless of class of service

The point I was actually trying to make is whilst LAN is telling us LANpass folks that we are being given access to magic inventory that partners cannot see and having to pay a slight premium for it, this is not true and BA can see 7 seats in Y.

Whilst distance based programmes might have slight differences where one destination pair is cheaper than another on one airline and more expensive on another. What LAN is telling us is this...

"Con el Canje Flexible LANPASS es más fácil canjear tus kms. ya que cuenta con más cupos disponibles. "

Paraphrasing for those that do not speak the lingo. "With Flexible LASPASS redemptions it's easier to redeem your kms. There is more availability"

This is plainly untrue if LAN is charging us Flexible redemption rates and BA has 7 seats at a value roughly equal to or less than the classic rate.

irishguy28

That is not correct.

The "basic" rate for accumulating Avios is 1 Avios per mile flown, but this can be, depending on airline and fare class, 0 Avios per mile, 0.25 Avios per mile, 0.3 Avios per mile, 0.5 Avios per mile, 0.7 Avios per mile, 0.75 Avios per mile, 1 Avios per mile, 1.1 Avios per mile, 1.25 Avios per mile, 1.5 Avios per mile, or 2 Avios per mile. That is before we even consider if any status bonuses may apply.


The same amount of flying that gives you X amount of Avios will not always (or maybe ever) give you Y amount of LAN kilometres, where X is the mile equivalent of Y kilometres.

There are far more variables at play here, rather than merely converting miles to kilometres. That works only when you are talking about physical distances. It does not work when you are talking about Frequent Flyer Mileage currencies.

You can't directly compare Avios to other miles-based programmes, for instance.

JohnnyColombia

it is correct in so far as a kilometre is also not a kilometre and that is what we are comparing.

ORDSCL

Does anyone one if what the OP describes is true for Lan vis-a-vis AA as well? Usually I'd look for the USA-CL flights costing 35,000 km OW and thus assume AA has that same availability. But maybe there are seats available for AA even if Lan is pricing them out at more than the minimum price (i.e. 35kkm)?

JohnnyColombia

ORDSCL, I do not know the answer to your question but I am sure it is possible to check. I like you also presumed, and told other FTers looking for LAN availability on partners, that the way to find it was to check the price on LAN and if LAN had classic availability then it would be available on partner programmes.

Not the case apparently, at least for BA, there is availability even when LAN is trying to milk us for flex redemptions.

sdsearch

It's trickier to figure out because aa.com doesn't show LAN, you have to call in for LAN availability, and even then the phone agents can often have a hard time seeing all the same LAN availability than ba.com shows, and then because of complex routing rules on awards may take 10 minutes to figure out how mcuh your LAN route would actually cost in AA miles. (For example, US->EXE is 50k AA one way in business, but only if you connect in Brazil or in the US; if you connect in Peru, like LAN's direct LAX-LIM-EZE flight does, it's priced as two separate awards. So for each route, you need to know AA's valid routings to know which LAN flights would price how.)

bingocallerb22

Yup, complicated. Even more if you use the BOGMIA example because that is a real mess right now. What with the phantom 38k (which surprisingly exists for some March all April right now), the more regular 43-46k and a chart that promises 48k. Ima guessing that anything below 48k might show up for BA on that messed up route.

fedechat

Hi JohnnyColombia, just you let you know that BA is not rising the cost of Y awards, MIA-BOG is zone 3, the actual cost is 10K and after 4/28 it will stay the same. The only difference is if you flight with BA (not a partner), they will have peak and off peak, but only for BA, for partners the cost will be the same as peak.

The big difference will be on J and F (after the 3rd zone), it used to be Y=1x, Y+=1.5x, J=2x and F=3x, but after 4/28 the Y+ will be 2x

For example
now
MIA-SCL: Y=25K, Y+=37.5K(it does not exist), J=50K, F=75K

after 4/28
MIA-SCL: Y=25K, Y+=50K, J=75K and F=100K

The change will not affect me, I use my Avios for short haul in Y, or some long haul (direct routes) with the Cash+Points option. For example, MIA-EZE-MIA is 50K in Y + 88.xx in taxes, I prefer to use only 15K Avios points + $488.xx

JohnnyColombia

But the published 48K is return and as I mentioned above, I can see availability on BA when the LANPASS kms cost is 45K each way, which is 90K return. Way over the 48K published classic cost.

Thanks fedechat, I had misread the revised chart thinking that BOG MIA must be band 4 hence it currently costs 10,000 but would be 12,500 after the change. Of course it is already "peak rate" in Band 3. Makes sense thanks