Originally Posted by kebosabi

Doubt it for ORD, AA Terminal 3 doesn't have CBP processing facilities; even AA international flights have to first disembark passengers at the international T5 and physically move the plane to T3. Huge inefficiency right there.

Originally Posted by Hagbard Viking

For arrivals yes. However, for departures using T3 is clearly possible, IB already does.

Originally Posted by Dave Noble

I read it that fuel fines will be charged on all BA flights.

Originally Posted by MilesMark

I acknowledge that I don't appreciate the nuances of international upgrades since we use our miles for business class international tickets but, anecdotally at least, there may be an actual improvement in award availability (although maybe only for today). This morning I snagged two business class seats on the dates we wanted in April on BA from BOS to MUC via LHR on the way out and on IB via MAD on the way back. BOS, not JFK! I was stunned. When I asked about a different day, she told me to call back soon as flights were being added to inventory today because of the AA/BA/IB combination. As you know, we could never have flown TATL on BA and any flights from BOS to LHR in business were extremely rare. To avoid the fuel surcharge, I had requested IB for both legs, but only available on the return. Sounds like going through MAD (which I prefer anyway) instead of LHR is going to be a good strategy to save money. We freqently flew IB from BOS to get to Europe, and now it's nice to have BA as a backup.

If you want to snag any TATL award travel, today may be a good day to call.

Originally Posted by worldwidedreamer

Why doesn't AA offer AC members reciprocal lounge access at BA/IB? UA and DL manage this to varying extent with their transatlantic partners; I wish AA would do the same.

Originally Posted by valuepac

I know BA charges the ridiculous fuel surcharge (tickets on economy using miles from westcoast are almost $400 to london), but do they also charge for flight at last minute like AA does?

Originally Posted by awpeters

MilesMark, mind sharing what your taxes and fees came out to?

Originally Posted by dstan

Originally Posted by jiacono

You can only upgrade on BA to J from W
You can not buy W on AA.com
You can only upgrade tickets bought on AA.com

Thus, you can never upgrade to J on BA.

Is this correct?

Originally Posted by Bitterroot

I don't think so. You may have to buy a BA ticket from AA: AA can sell BA tickets that may have a fare class that doesn't exist on AA for that same route.

Example: R class business fares from the US West Coast to India via the North Atlantic. The cheapest upgradeable business class fare (for an upgrade to F) is a BA R class; this fare class doesn't exist on AA for the same route, at least not yet.

But you could buy the BA fare from AA, then upgrade it on BA metal using AA miles.

Originally Posted by bernardd

One way you can check the likely taxes & surcharges is to use a site like itasoftware.com to price the route and class you want. Once you have that, drill down to the fare details and it will break out the components of the price for you. Most of those are identical for reward and revenue tickets.