Depending on the cities you want to fly to, BA has fairly cheap econ fares. If you have AA "bumping" vouchers (what they give you for volunteering to take a later flight if yours is oversold), you can actually use them to purchase BA tickets at any AA city ticket office. With these vouchers, the tax (sometimes as much as 30% of the cost of the ticket) is waived, so this makes it a very good deal. So you could use an award ticket combined w/purchased tickets.