olybeast

Hi everyone I'm new to this forum but have been reading around it for a while.

I've been searching about and I just want one definitive answer from someone who knows.

I want to book ORD - HNL return on AA but I want to pay with my BA miles.
I need someone to tell me:
How many miles will this cost? How do I find out how many miles it would cost? How do I book it? Are there any upgrade options? (eg cash for flight, miles for upgrade?)

I wish they had a website that automatically converted your miles to whatever airline's miles you want and book/upgrade whatever you want

Maybe I'll design oneworld a nice website to do it lol

Anyway, kind regards and thanks in advance for any answers.

Oliver

Raffles

Welcome to FT!

You should be able to book it on ba.com, just pop the dates into the usual miles search engine. However, I understand (having never tried it) that better availability can be found by ringing BA, especially where a change of plane is needed.

Hawaii rewards are in high demand by AA flyers, so be warned ...

timezonehopper

As Raffles quite rightly points out this is certainly possible using ba.com, the Partner Redemption booking engine should give you all the information you need. If it helps, just last week I booked a couple of SFO-HNL returns in Y on AA using BA miles for 35,000 miles and a whopping £3.20 in taxes per person for the return flight.

olybeast

Thanks for your quick replies guys... I have been trying this on ba.com but it keeps coming up with errors and 'your dates have no flights' etc.. but Iv'e tried the dates on aa.com and the flights are there!! The interlinking between these things really needs looked at lol... I'll obviously phone them if it comes to it.

Thanks timezonehelper for your recent example. That gives a general guide and just about what I was thinking.

potakas

You should log in to your Executive Club account, then click on the ''Spending BA Miles'' link and the ''book using BA miles'', search for the dates that you are interested in and then after searching you should see another link saying inclube partners, then you will get your flights.

I had a dummy booking and found availability on economy for May, it will cost you 35.000 BA miles and 3.86 Euros ^, if you want to travel Business Class then you should search for First as this is how the domestic AA's Business class is called. So for AA's First you will need 105,000 BA miles and 7 Euros^


If you want to check more destinations, go to ''Spending BA miles'' and click on ''How many BA Miles do you need to fly?''

David-A

[Just worth checking, you are aware that miles redemption seats need to be available on a flight to make a miles booking? Like seats at deep discount price, it is subject to capacity control to keep services profitable.]

potakas

Maybe BA has no access to all redemption seats on AA's flights, that's why you see availability on AA instead on BA.

olybeast

Thanks potakas I will get on that now my plans just for your interest.

LHR - ORD buy premium economy with cash upgrade to club with miles; 25000miles + £800

ORD - HNL buy aa flight with 35000 miles (its looking like) or £300

AA flights aren't great value for miles

thanks for all your help

Raffles

Depends how you look at it. Chicago to Hawaii is a LONG way - you would pay substantially more miles for a BA flight of a similar distance (4200 miles!). Look at the cash price as a bargain.

I assume you actually want to go to Chicage, otherwise it would make far more sense (and be far more comfortable) to fly to the West Coast on BA and then get the Hawaii hop. Even AA F internally is not up to BA CW standards, I imagine.

guv1976

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

Just want to clear up a few misconceptions. You cannot convert BA miles to AA miles; you can use BA miles to book AA award travel. When you do so, you will pay the number of miles that BA charges for the particular route, which might be more than, less than, or the same as what AA would charge for the same redemption.

AA does not offer "business class" between ORD and Hawaii; only first class and coach are offered. If you only book ORD-Hawaii with miles, BA will charge you three times the coach redemption rate for first class on AA. However, if you were to book Europe-ORD-Hawaii with miles, a business class (Club World) redemption with BA miles would entitle you to sit in first class on AA from ORD to Hawaii.

And bear in mind that BA permits free en-route stopovers on award redemptions, even on partner carriers.