Oh I agree with you I think in general one is crazy to transfer Chase or Amex points to BA if the purpose is to fly TATL on BA metal. But the average points consumer is probably not the average FT'er. If they are going to fly BA their first and likely only thought is to transfer points to BA and book. They aren't going to price out other ways to do it. Also BA for all of its shortcoming as a program for a US based consumer who wants to fly TATL is it has lots of premium seats available to Europe so one has to spend less time hunting and getting creative. They fly three flights a day out of DC area (in normal times) and I can almost always find a couple of premium seats available around the dates I want. In the good old days I actually remember seeing five seats in F available sometimes though that would never happen now of course. For some what is effectively a discounted ticket is good enough.