CDKing

I'm just glad TATL flights from BOS are so short, I just fly revenue Y.

channa

Yup. I've had this happen to me on AA before as well.

I've also been downgraded on a domestic transcon flight of a business class J international ticket due to an oversale 3 weeks prior (which when I noticed I became unseated, AA refused to reroute me, despite several attempts at cajoling and them having space via another hub).

I've even had them do little things like not just not honor a pre-ordered meal choice, but cater the wrong meal (e.g., breakfast for dinner).

AA is better than BA when they're on their A game. But IME, that's few and far between. BA may not be the best product in the world, but they are incredibly consistent, have a very nice bonus for Paid J posting to AS, and get the job done.

AA does fine in Y, IME. It's a much lower bar that they're capable of meeting consistently.

Happy

I would too but husband refuses to fly Y out of MIA.

I actually dont mind to buy the BA cheap J fares that seem to come at least twice a year. The issue is we often only need a one-way. Like in May the only AA metal I could find (and not the ideal date) was from BCN but we were in Northern Europe. At the end with AA miles we flew 9W AMS-YYZ instead and took the opportunity to spend a few days in YYZ visiting families before taking a UA revenue flight back home. Unfortunately even the 9W option would be no more come 2018.

quemalo

BA F is fine. It's not AF, but as far as Alaska partners to Europe goes it works. I do agree that J is not great, with the caveat being upper deck 747 window seats. And I guess the A380 upper deck window seats aren't bad as well, although the 747 upper deck is a lot smaller and feels better.

BA F is also only 70k miles, which when compared to the J for 60k miles makes it a better option if you can spare the extra 10k miles.

bofc

And adding to the "game of chance" feeling is that the worse the configuration the more likely it is you'll have an empty seat next to you - which is a game changer in coach. We were on a dusty old 767 from Chicago to Dublin and unlike other flights that day it was not crowded at all. Mrs. BofC and I both had empty seats next to us. I'll take that any day over a crowded flight with a good entertainment system.

anc-ord772

I was happy to pay 70k+$359 for BA/AS LIS-LHR-SJC-LAX in F.

On the outbound I'm flying AA/BA in J LAX-DFW-LHR-LIS for 57.5k+$25.

Sure AA has a decent product now, but availability in J/F is scarce. Besides AA wanted 85k miles and ~$530 for BA F... it makes AS rates look reasonable.

Flying for Fun

I refuse to pay BA fees strictly on principle. My last paid AA J YLW-SEA-DFW-MAD June outbound VCE-PHL-SEA-YLW July inbound was $1800. As MVPG I received over 38K RDM. While the DFW-MAD segment hard product on the 787-9 was nice the soft product was at best, average. No Tequila on AA??? On the VCE-PHL segment the hard product A330 was underwhelming and the soft product and catering was deplorable. Is it necessary to murder a Tenderloin TWICE? No Tequila on AA???

Looking at a few dates for me from YLW-LIS I see some F availability on BA from SEA-LHR with Y YLW-SEA and J (blocked out middle Y seat) LHR-LIS. 70K & $397. If I wanted to do the return as well I would be forking out 140K miles and nearly $800 USD. Ouch! Not much value there for me.

I have recently booked:

EK J A380 SFO-DXB/26 days/DXB-JHB 105K
EY F A380 apartment AUH-SYD 100K via AA
QF J Domestic B737 SYD-DRW 20K
Paid LLC A321 DRW-DPS $80 all in
Paid KLM B777 DPS-SIN $100 all in
SQ J B777 SIN-DXB 45K Kris Flyer via SPG
CX J JNB-HKG/4 days/HKG-BOS 62.5K

Collectively, all the award booking fees and taxes totaled less than $350. Evidentally, I can't justify BA fees.

eponymous_coward

I have no principles as far as that goes; I regularly buy AV miles, sometimes buy AS miles, have recently indirectly bought DL and UA miles (using a DL targeted promo of 1k per unique partner and a UA hotel point transfer promo from Choice Privileges and Club Carlson to top up for a future award), used to buy US miles in the past when they were a going concern.

If I relied on JUST my 20-45k annual AS BIS miles plus whatever else randomly occurs to generate mileage for premium longhaul travel, I'd get to do it maybe once every three or four years, if that; at 50% bonus, an annual total of 25,000 BIS AS miles will take you about three years to do one CX J round trip. I'd rather take them every 12-18 months.

As such, I'd rather spend $500-1,000 USD on miles per year than $1,000 or more on mileage runs on places I don't really want to go to. As such, a BA redemption is just another cost.

PS: try a one way from Europe originating from Inverness (INV). See what happens.

anc-ord772

None of those are redemptions to Europe. AS and AA don't offer a lot of low tax decent ride upfront options to Europe so...

That being said, 61,250 + $192 each way for J/F RT on the dates I want to the location I want seems reasonable to me. Especially given how many miles UA/AA would require for the redemption.

I do agree, I would be hard pressed to spend $400+ each way for BA F RT, but that's not what happened here. Sure it would have been cheaper to fly AA RT, but I can't book space that doesn't exist.

kileysmom

Wow! Of course one has to get to Inverness but for those already in the north of England or in Scotland, that's a bunch of difference!

bigbirdwithsilverwings

Totally agree. Hilarious post!

channa

Yup. You can put a cost on anything. Of course I don't like the BA YQ, but it's not that bad out of some markets, especially certain Europe or Middle East to USA, and if they have the right flight vs taking some suboptimal day or flight, why not?

Obviously if there's an alternative, go for it if it makes sense. But it's not always the end of the world if BA has the right flight.

I have one booked where BA was 70K plus a YQ of about $160. Alternative would have been EK for 105K with no YQ for worse flight times.

I did one a couple years ago where it was 45K AA miles (50K - 10% from having the CC) Europe to USA with a $150 YQ. I needed the specific date in summer, and nobody else had space. I could have held out for something on Star to open and it would have been 70K. Locking in BA made sense there too.

Principles are great, but value is most important.

eponymous_coward

If somebody was selling 35K AS miles for $160, I'd be a buyer. So I have to agree with you.

nomiiiii

Thanks for this tip. Looks like Lisbon/Athens and other similar ones end up in ~$200-$250 oneway taxes also (as opposed to $500 or so right out of london).

Do we have a list of such origination points which keep the one-way taxes under, say, $300.

kileysmom

I know that simply transiting the London airports knocks some off the fees....if you layover there, it seems to add about $250. Zurich seems to get US-LHR-ZRH of about $375. However, I was speaking with one of the partner award staff a few nights ago and she said the fees change sometimes hourly with BA so to keep checking back.....I don't know that they change by a lot but it's worth just checking online, I suppose.