mia

http://www.britishairways.com/en-us/...&link=main_nav

Questions about redeeming Avios are best researched in the BAEC forum, beginning in this thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...os-2016-a.html

If you fly transatlantic on a flight operated by BA or AA there will be a substantial co-payment required. You need to find flights operated by AB or EI to reduce the fees.

runb4fun

does BA charge tax for booking done within US? I was looking for Chicago to NYU...which is under 1k miles in distance.

and can you do seat upgrade on above avios booking?

Big4Flyer

Just as an update to my question, I was able to apply for a 100k personal offer shortly after this question. Was approved on 8/31, met spend by 9/7, paid off card shortly after. Originally each time I contacted AmEx via phone and chat I was told they couldn't expedite bonus points since it was my first membership rewards card. I eventually took the suggestion from r/churning and requested them to only expedite my points from SPENDING, rather than BONUS. They said they would expedite the 3,000 points from spending.

I just finished chatting with them, and my 103,000 points are now there, just in time for the transfer to Avios!

Update: And now it looks like I'm under an FR. Found out when I tried to transfer my points and was unable to. Now I'm unable to use all of my AmEx cards and it looks like I won't be able to transfer my points in time for the bonus. For clarification, I've never done any MS before and my reported income is my actual income, I just wish the timing was a little better.

DoctorORD

Love this transfer bonus. Flew a bunch of intra Euro trips (e.g. LHR-AMS) for 4K miles or so. I could have taken some Euro LCC but didn't want to deal with all that baggage BS.
Just flew HKG-BKK for 8K points (plus some extra $ using cash + Avios) on CX business, but with this bonus, transferred only 6500 points. The actual cost $1000 one way. Really hard to get an economy redemption since CX heavily oversells Y, but biz is almost always available. Will probably fly KIX-HKG or TYO-HKG in a few days for next to nothing. Thanks Avios!

SanDiego1K

I agree there are sweet spots with the BA program thanks to its distance based rather than region based redemptions. I was quoted 42.5K AA miles for Doha to Erevan, Armenia. I checked BA and redeemed for 15K Avios. I always want to have Avios for opportunities such as this.