I just this morning redeemed for AC
Since my future international travel is on AA partners but not Oneworld there is no access to AC leaving and arriving back to the states

Hi,

I have ~2700 points expiring at the end of this year, and no real travel planned before then. (I do have travel planned, but not that I could use my Business Extra points.) I'm wondering what my best strategy is here.

I do often fly JFK-LAX/SFO, so I suppose I can redeem for 4-5 BXP1 certificates. Then I'd have a while to redeem them and I could always fly the family out to California for a short vacation or something. But if anyone has ideas on clever ways to "hedge" -- redeem the points before they expire but protect against the uncertainty of changed plans -- I'd appreciate any thoughts the experts in this thread have.

Thanks in advance!

I find the BXP1s to be the best value for me. If you redeem the points now, the certificates issued will expire December 2016. If you wait until the end of the year, there's a good chance the certificates issued then will expire June 2017, so gives you some time to use them.

As long as you book into a fare class which these are eligible for, I think they're a great deal. I've used them for companions multiple times, and also for myself. Even as an EXP, there are times where the upgrades look pretty hopeless, so I'm not afraid to use them.

In a similar situation, ended up booking 2 BX1A RTs to Cancun for May 2016. Redemption to Mexico (Canada) is the same as continental US, which generally means a better value than miles.

Downside of all BE travel awards is that unlike miles, ANY changes (including days of travel, flights) incur a $150 fee, so only book an itinerary you are happy with.

As chicagoflyer1976 stated, BXP1 certificates cannot be used on most discounted fares. In many cases, discounted first (A fare bucket) fares can be about the same as higher coach fare buckets required to use the BXP1. For this reason, I stopped redeeming BXP1 certs.

Depending on your point of origin, number of flight segments, it can be difficult, painful to obtain an upgraded boarding pass when redeeming a BXP1 cert. While it has been more than 1 year since I have last attempted to do so, BXP1 upgraded segment boarding passes cannot be obtained online, from the phone app, most ticket counter agents are unaware of the process, often have to call a help desk for assistance, which still may not be successful. In other words, plan to arrive at the airport early, spend some time at the counter.

Thanks. I'm looking at March 2016 for my trip to LAX. Looks like a G class ticket (lowest upgradeable) is $649 pp r/t. The cheapest economy r/t, in N, is $499, which I think is about standard for when there's not a sale going on. So it's $250 for an upgrade to business on the 32B. Not a terrible deal. But you're right that purchasing outright isn't a bad deal: A K-UP ticket (KE30INUP) is just $1197 r/t.

My hangup on purchasing an award ticket (as opposed to upgrade) is that the BXP1 is just 650 points which seems so cheap. But I guess if they're hard to use in a cost-effective way then it's not really that "cheap" anymore and maybe I should redeem for a flight.

I redeemed 8800 for 2x Asia that at the time were selling for about $1200 each. I figured that was plenty a good deal. I keep looking at those BXP1s, but they never seem to work for me to get the right flights into the right buckets without costing a fortune.

I'll probably do the same thing in the future and save them for big international trips.

In this specific case, redeeming BXP1 is a better option than K-UP - unless you are looking for EQPs. I have had others (not on 32B) which are less obvious.

If redeeming one BXP1 will keep your point total over 2k, there will still be enough for one round trip in the Continental North America, sounds like an excellent use of BE points.

Easiest way around this is to book two one-ways so your outbound can be in G class and return in N. This way you aren't paying for the higher fare class on the leg that you don't need it.

I just booked SFO-JFK for mid-September in G and the O/W cost was $329. For a BXP1 eligible fare, I think that's a pretty decent redemption.

Thanks - I had not realized the point values are for roundtrips; I had assumed that they were one-way prices.

That's a good point; I care most about the upgrade on the redeye return and can endure Y (!) on the outbound daytime flight.

Just wondering, how long does it take the BXP3 certificates to arrive?

Do they work just like system wides (phone in to waitlist for C inventory)?

Also, seems like there's blackout dates involved? It says "Restricted Travel Dates Apply" in the T&C.

I usually have mine within 3-5 days max.

Yes, you call them and see if there's inventory. If not, they waitlist you. 1-800-433-1790

I have a question that may not exactly fit here but I don't know where else to ask it...

I need to book an overseas trip for a group of 10+ people (company travel from EU to US and back). My company has had a Business Extra account with AA for many years, so we have "officially" been corporate customers for AA but only ever used Business Extra to get points credited and use the points for travel benefits. But since this will be an approx. USD15-20k purchase for the group (just for the flights), I wondered if I can get a better price (corporate/group discount) by calling the Business Extra service desk and booking through them, as opposed to just booking on the website.

Does anyone know if I can expect any kind of a discount by calling them? If so, what can I expect and/or how to ask to get the best offer from them?

We have been pretty loyal with all our travel to OW through American, but currently SkyTeam (Delta/KLM) has a much better rate for the trip than what's on offer from any of the OW airlines.

Also, I will need to book hotels and even a cruise (yes, really - it will actually be a corporate planning trip for our company including a one week Caribbean cruise) for the entire group, so I wonder if that weighs in in any way with all the airlines pimping hotels and cruises these days...

I would prefer to fly OW, but if I add it all up, we are talking about a total around $40k (including flights, hotels and cruise) and the difference adds up to several thousands of dollars (SkyTeam being the cheaper), so I'm questioning if our loyalty makes sense in this situation - or if I can make American compete for our business in this case.

Any thoughts?

Can I use a bxp1 cert on a flight operated by US? If so, should I buy the US or AA flight number or does it not matter?

Can I exchange a certificate without redepositing points? I have a BXP1A certificate that I redeemed with expiring points last December. I haven't been able to use it yet, but am booking award seats to Hawaii and was wondering if I could add another 1000 points and use it for that? I obviously can't redeposit the points as they have now expired. I thought I had remembered that this was possible, but now I can't find anything suggesting that. Figured it was worth a try. Thanks!

So I had flight credit requests from last month processed, but nothing from the prior few months. Anybody else?