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Originally Posted by vanhost
Thanks for the advice. After trying to locate some flights that I may want to take through the Avios calculator, it does seem the availability isn't all that great. Think I will go with the AA miles for now and reevaluate for the next conversion.
Unless you are willing to pay AA's much-higher AAnytime award rate,
availability should be exactly the same, whether you are redeeming AAdvantage miles or BA Avios. The differences will be in fees, exact number of miles/Avios required, etc.
A search on aa.com for SAAver availability will show award space on AA, AB, AS, AY, BA, HA, and QF, all of which are BA partners, except for HA.
BA Avios can be very good if you want to travel to
Ireland, as EI is a BA partner, and fuel surcharges on EI trans-Atlantic redemptions are minuscule; but you would have to pay additional Avios to get to an EI gateway, like BOS, ORD, or JFK on AA.
You cannot see EI award-seat availability on ba.com; you must either call BAEC, or check availability at united.com. (EI is a United partner, too.)