Originally Posted by
Mwenenzi
Missing a lot.
How long in London for? A few months/years or for ever. If only for 1~2 years may not be worth the effort.
Many airlines from UK airports. Not just BA. And other airports in London region. LGW LCY STN
Free long haul business class tickets is not gong to happen. BAEC is notorious for award cash surcharges. If an AA award on BA the same surcharges apply. Unless using an AA SWU from memory an AA upgrade has $350 fee plus ff miles. As well as real taxes & regulatory fees. UK has the infamous APD,
BA mid-top status will give AS-AA lounge access in USA for USA domestic flights, where as AA status will not. International flights have different access rules. Can be important for some.
Avios is used by BA-IB-IE-QR Qatar and now AY. Avios, but not status, can be moved between some of these ffp's . Consider IB
BA or Oneworld airlines may not be the best price-schedule-routes for London to EU. Better to fly based on schedule~price. EU is small.
For Paris~France or Belgium taking the train from London may be better point to point when considering time and cost to get to/from airports depending on where you will live.
Will you be able to get ff miles/avois/points from non flying activities? UK credit card?
Thanks for all this info - very helpful. The intention is for the move to be permanent but obviously things can change as parents age and kids go to university. I'd guess at a minimum we'll be there for 10 years or so. We will be moving to SW London so LHR will be the most convenient airport for us - probably not much travel out of LGW, STN or LTN unless the fares are significantly different / more convenient.
I suppose I misspoke when I said 'free' business class - I understand there will be fees but my intention is to use miles/avios to get my family in business class at a significantly reduced price. On UA for example we would buy PE fares and use miles to upgrade into business class which generally worked pretty well (though not always guaranteed). I did have a look at random dates for LHR-LAX on both AA and BA, and BA's website was saying 'no availability' while AA was showing business class availability for ~230k miles. That seems like a win for the AA program?
As for CC spend, my intention was to continue using a US based credit card with zero foreign transaction fees since the rewards are much better. I can use my parents' US address to keep the card. Currently I have a UA card but I'm open to switching to an AA card or maybe CSR or Amex Platinum if the value is there. In SoCal our current natural spend is around $30k/year so I'd guess it will be similar in London but hard to say for sure given all the differences in cost of living.
Originally Posted by
guv1976
Do you currently have any elite status in Mileage Plus? If so, applying for a BA status match
before the May 7 deadline is a no-brainer. Details in this thread:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...residents.html
BA Avios can usually provide better value than AAdvantage miles for trips between London and the rest of Europe. Conversely, AAdvantage miles can provide better value for intercontinental travel, as long as you are not redeeming for travel where BA is the carrier on the long-haul segment.
Thanks this is a good shout, I have UA Gold status so might as well get free BA Silver. In terms of value of points - that's good to know thanks. I am fine using other airlines besides BA for my personal travel. My main goal is to extract as much value out of the ~$7-10k of spend I will be doing for my work trips which will most likely be on BA flights (except maybe MIA) since our corporate travel program forces non-stop when available.