Well I'm just exploring at this point, so that makes it harder to pin things down. Need to leave from YYZ, 3 people. Travel is for approx 7 days, either mid-February or end of April. Other than that, things are pretty open.
I did some digging about BA and it looks like my points would be enough to give me business class flights from YYZ-LAX: 158,000 pts gives me 237,000 Avios. The YYZ-LAX flight is 25,000 Avios + $55, so that would be 150,000 pts return for 3 people. I assume this would actually be an AA flight, but the BA site just says "partner". But AA requires 25,000 AAdvantage points, for business class so it seems that transferring to BA to get the 1.5 bonus is a better use. We could even use the leftover points to pay for a hotel via BA
However we are also open to going somewhere in Europe, although I think that would be for April since we'd want some warmer weather. Again, that sounds like BA would be a better choice, although the taxes & fees you have to pay do seem pretty stiff even if the fare is free....
EG
AA is zone-based, so you look at your origin and destination and determine miles needed. BA is segment-based, so you need to determine your possible routing to determine miles needed (
http://www.wandr.me/Avios-Calculator.aspx is a great tool for that) - having to connect (for example in ORD or DFW) will increase the number of miles needed.
For some reason, BA charges US Int'l Arrival/Departure Tax on AA redemptions, even though they're not supposed to. Change your BA account address to a US address
after your Avion points are transferred to avoid this - will save you ~$17 per person each way.
BA miles to Europe will incur fuel surcharges on BA and AA metal, so those can get expensive. Try and see if there are options on Air Berlin or Aer Lingus - those have little/zero fuel surcharge. There may also be other options, explore
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...urcharges.html.
Good luck, let me know if you have any more questions.