Originally Posted by
flyingeph12
OK, but I also stand by my strong belief that most people who are flying to TXL, using AA miles and not using AB are not going to be flying the 1 DfW-FRA flight, or the 1 JFK-ZRH flight, or the 1 PHL-MUC flight, or the 1 PHL-FCO flight (2 in the summer when there is a CLT-FCO flight) but rather the over twenty flights a day to London on AA/BA or the more than handful of flights to MAD on AA/IB. Of course AB connects TXL to more cities, but in terms of the largest OW gateways, there are other choices such that the loss of AB award space is not detrimental to those who wish to connect in my opinion.
I think perhaps the bigger problem with AB not being available is when one needs to fly between cities on the continent and going through LHR, MAD, or HEL (which are on the "edges") would add a lot of extra time.
I don't think it's so clear to any of us that BA business class is any better than AB business class, especially given the exorbitant fees involved. (And we've already all seemingly agreed that IB isn't any better than AB.) Connecting in LHR to an AA flight will also cost more in fees and surcharges. I stand by my strong belief that most people will fly TXL-JFK, TXL-ORD, or TXL-MIA when available rather than spending hundreds of extra dollars to connect in Heathrow and fly in the not as good seats on BA.
But let's get back to the topic of this thread:
There is obviously something weird going on in that neither BA nor AA have any access to AB award seats. If you have no interest in flying AB, ok bye. If you have info as to what's going on, please share.