Originally Posted by
rofly
If you don't live in a BA gateway city, you'll have to factor in the costs in $ or miles of getting to a BA city to start your trip.
BA will put you on a partner as part of its award redemption. I'm flying ORF to GLA in August--the first part of that trip, from ORF to JFK, is on AA and was included in my redemption. ORF is clearly not a BA gateway city.