Originally Posted by
dreamrider213
I currently hold silver with BA which expires in December. I only gave two trips planned so far this year, one to London and the other to Australia. However, I am struggling to obtain enough points through these flights to maintain status. If I fly CW then the cost is absolutely horrendous. Does anyone have any tips/strategies/websites that may help to obtain more points without going bankrupt? I am based in the US. Thank you
There are actually quite a lot of ways to earn TPs cheaply in the US, the harder part is getting the BA flights but sounds like you are already doing that with the London and Australia trips.
If you want to do everything necessary to earn silver in one trip try a <obscure south west city> to LAX or PHX, then JFK and then MEX in business class probably in the summer. In terms of good cheap cities - look at El Paso (ELP), Tuscon (TUS) and Yuma (YUM) - but there's actually quite a lot of options - more commonly through PHX than LAX. If you can find a cheap LAX connection the LAX-JFK route is AA flagship business which is way better than the crappy first on PHX to JFK. These also need at least one overnight flight as there's no way to schedule the MEX portion without it.
Here's an example of this kind of flight. You'll probably need to become skilled in ITA Matrix to find these. Booking them requires an element of luck online or ringing up AA or BA. This would give you 640 tier points for $1198.88.
