Barkinpark

Thank you for all your insights. Seems like redeeming AS miles for BA flights is not that great an idea.

guv1976

The OP is going beyond London:

"I am looking up BA J class seat availability for travel from the west coast to continental EU."

So checking surcharges from YVR, as well as checking surcharges on two one-ways (or maybe even an open jaw like YVR-Europe-U.S. West Coast) does make a lot of sense.

guv1976

There is also this intriguing post from golfmad in the BA forum, hinting that BA carrier surcharges may be coming down significantly in the not-too-distant future:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/34694093-post6.html

diver858

I was able to find J availability FCO-LAX on IB in April '23, connecting through MAD - 75k AS miles plus $63.57 each.

diver858

Good find; until LHR, other major Eurpoean hubs are able to manage current volume, it is not obvious why any carrier would voluntarily reduce prices (revenue), and in turn stimulate demand.
Weak euro and pound (relative to the dollar), growing fear of a recession provide some justification, still appears premature.

SeattleDavid

UK taxes have little to do with fares to and from continental Europe – you only pay UK departure taxes if you stay in London for over 24 hours.

Sea2Lhr

Don't look at the award ticket as a "free" ticket. Look at it as a discounted ticket. Compare the fees and taxes on an award ticket with the price of a paid ticket.

Unfortunatey, BA is just about the only Alaska partner airline that offers award tickets in J class to Europe. J class awards on AA are scarce as hens' teeth.

Sometimes you have to take what you can get.

eddiehuang97

BA charges high YQ for award flights between NA and London/Europe -- it's the same for all partners except CX(don't know why), no matter if you use AA points or AS miles or Avios.

cpworld

Looking at the same next summer. going to buy points on one of the European carriers and redeem that way

etiene

Many on these boards fail to see the connection here: not only do BA commit to making a set number of reward seats available on every flight - unlike AA AFAIK - but the high surcharges tend to mean that BA awards remain available for much longer than any other partners'. BA awards can still be good value in certain circumstances, but as Sea2Lhr says many prefer to gnash their teeth on FT because of the view that reward travel as something that should be basically "free". The view that the miles/points/Avios were given for free is fundamentally flawed in the modern era, at the very least for those who get points from CC spend etc. The points had a price, and that is one of several factors that should be taken into account when deciding whether to purchase a cash ticket or redeem points.

FragranceMarketingGuy

Just used my AS mileage for J SAN->TLV LGW->LAS mid May on the outbound and early June on the return.
Some creativity involved using Membership Rewards for TLV->ATH & ATH->LHR & WN LAS->SAN (still looking for seats to open up on the NS from LHR)
But, the BA legs pricing out over $12K for their respective legs.
Although the taxes/fees are high, we saved significant $$ for this trip.
-Jim

enzian

If you search on the day the award seats are released by AS ( 330 days in advance) you may find J seats on Icelandair, Condor, Finnair, or Aer Lingus (this one charges a whopping 280K miles for J seats, though).

lily23

100% agree with this - I've used AS miles to fly SEA/YVR - LHR multiple times in J/F. It's definitely not the best possible redemption with the fuel surcharges, but its often available (have flown multiple times in peak Dec travel times) and these days is a significant discount to paid fares. In the past you could book AF/KLM in J round trip for ~2k, so not as good a deal then but lately J fares are frequently in the 4-5K range. I find its especially useful when utilizing cheap J/F fares ex-UK ie. LHR-SEA-LHR and then using miles to cover the outbound / inbound legs needed.

diver858

Despite daily 777 service between SAN-LHR, award travel is virtually non-existent for connections on the nonstop, most end up being 2 stops to/from major European hubs, with mixed service - Y on both the BA TATL and AS domestic US connection. In contrast, AA dynamic pricing typically offers at least one option in both Y and J, although the redemption values are often prohibitive, with more than 1 connection. So while the above may be correct for SEA and possibly LAX using AS miles, experience suggests it is not the case for other AS focus cities with a BA LHR nonstop.

steveholt

What do you mean by connections on the nonstop? When the nonstop has availability, that there's not connections available to that nonstop?

I picked 1/17 as an example. There's connections in J to SAN-LHR from:

AUS
FAT
SMF

Others have connections elsewhere - BOI, GEG, PAE, RDM have connections through SFO in J the whole way. SJC and STS have connections through LAX in J the whole way. Those are the non-Hawaiian cities listed on Wikipedia with regular (non-seasonal) flights on AS to SAN. The only one that didn't have availability was SBP.