jabrams72

Hi,

So I'm wondering about other people's comparative values. I'm looking at an award ticket and the relative costs are either:

17.5K AAdvantage
10K Avios

The tax costs otherwise are the same; I see this as pretty much a wash, but wondering about other people's thoughts on it?

Note, I'm looking at this specific comparison.

Thanks.

satman40

Depends on how hard the points are to get, and to spend...I save my AA miles for International travel.

Avois are for Midwest hops...in my case"

To each his own

UKdiver

Avios are terrible value for intercontinental travel.

maxduke

The only way that Avios are good value is if you take advantage of the BA/AMEX affiliate card that gives you a 2 for 1 voucher once a year. Save 100k, and take your partner to (in my case Barbados in Club World) OK, the tax is punitive, just over £1,000 for the two of us, but it means you get to travel Club World for the same price as a basic economy ticket. BA/AMEX gives the 2 for 1 each year after you have spent I think £10,000 on the card. If you travel regularly on business, then this is easy. I rarely travel BA on paid flights, and always manage to accumulate 100k Avios by using this card as much as possible.

charlieduke

I have been looking at American Airlines availability next year between California and UK. Not good and unlike BA whereby you pay a set rate in Club depending on the route AA will offer a Business Seat at eg 50,000 and 100,000 for the same route. The website appears to be days out of date as when I looked a few days back, a search I entered came back with a message saying the seats were no longer available. Fair enough but the same seats showed availability again today and when I went further on the site it came up with the same message as three days back. I don't know whether this is a glitch with the AA advantage site or whether it is common practice with AA. I don't know whether it is better to ring BA up and try to book the seats but there would be cost implications I presume.

imapilotaz

In my opinion, I use BA solely for domestic US travel and AA for international travel. In order to add alot of AA miles, I use AMEX MR's, which goes 3x points for airfare, and then almost always bonus miles into BA.

Sure you wont find Avios availability on peak flights on peak days, but I've NEVER had an issue working around it. And I sure love those 9k mile roundtrip rewards...LOL.

Microwave

Avios are also (unsurprisingly) a decent value for intra-European travel. In addition, Avios redemptions aren't so bad for itineraries that terminate in Hong Kong--there are fuel surcharges but they aren't so bad compared to BA longhaul flights.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Except for intercontinental travel on AB, EI, and LA.

diver858

Avios are also excellent for short haul international travel in North America. We are based in SAN, have used Avios several times to book SAN-SJD on AS; should be the same for short hops on AA from JFK, ORD to Canada; DFW, MIA to the Caribbean.

We also use Avios to fly SAN-OGG on AS - 25k Avios versus 35k miles.

turkeyRIOO

Avios has liberal booking and cancellation policies. No crazy late booking or redeposit fees; only need to surrender the $2.50 per segment taxes paid.

Also, Avios is great for mixed class itineraries, example ATL-MIA in T MIA-SXM in U, when desired class is not available all the way through.

bruins014

I pay cancelation fees when I redeposit BA awards, you don't /

Kacee

Avios have amazing value if used for certain types of itineraries - specifically, short to medium haul J and F redemptions. For example, I just booked HKG-NRT in J on CX at a redemption value of 17.5 cpm. Earlier this year, I booked TXL-LHR within 24 hours of departure at a similarly amazing redemption rate.

The value is reflected in OP's question - on this particular itinerary, each Avios is worth 57% more than each AAdvantage point.

UncleDude

BA Golds are exempt.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Since BAEC does not make any additional collection when an award is cancelled, cancellation fees will never exceed the amount of cash paid when the award was issued. U.S. domestic awards on AA typically have a cash payment of only $2.50/segment, so if you cancel such an award, it only costs you $2.50/segment to reinstate your miles.

Kacee

It's only $40 to cancel and redeposit. In the world of airline fees, that is extremely reasonable.