simon stingray

Hello everyone,

New to the BA board and looking for some advice or opinions on the following dilemma.
I need to book a one way trip in C or F from MAN-MIA next April and there is no availability on BA.
There is availability in C class on AA direct from LHR (100000 Avios + £721 for the 2 of us) but I believe it is the "old" C class seats (777-200) and I have read somewhere on here that whilst the food may be better than BA, the hard product is not good.

I have also found availability on AirBerlin from DUS-MIA in C class on the dates I need. I probably wouldn't normally have considered this option but it seems a bargain at 100000 Avios and just £131 for the two of us. I realise that I would have to get us to DUS to start our journey but there are direct flights from MAN on LH for £87 each. Even if we stayed overnight in DUS to ensure there are no problems with missed connections (Hilton available @£59) this option comes in considerably cheaper.

My concern is that it has taken me a long time to accumulate these Avios. I don't travel on Business so everything I earn is from personal travel, Amex reward transfers and Clubcard points conversions (thanks to the advice from everyone here and the bonuses).
I have also never yet travelled in Club or F on BA. I came across from BMI where we experienced some great C & F class trips on LX, LH and Air NZ.

I don't want to spend 100000 of my hard earned Avios and be disappointed by the experience.

My other option is to wait and hope that availability to MIA on BA becomes available but I realise that there is a risk that I end up without flights.

If anyone has any experience or opinions of AA or AirBerlin C class and could help steer me in the right direction, I would be most grateful

olybeast

Hi Mr. Stingray and welcome to the BA board.

Are you flexible for your destination? You could fly into anywhere in US that has availability then connect to MIA? If you are dead set on BA than that is an option. AA avios redemptions on domestic AA have very low taxes.

I havn't tired Air Berlin so I can't comment, I do know their taxes are a lot less than BA which is good if you want to save cash.

I know what you mean about hard earned avios, I used mine on BA F to Moscow and it was well worth it. After all that saving of avios I would do nothing less than BA F. That's what they are for in my mind!

darthlemsip

I flew AA's 777-200 business seat in April and it was perfectly fine for a day flight - in some ways I preferred it to BA's CW one.

However, if you can sleep on planes (I can't), it's probably not the best for an overnight flight. And you definitely wouldn't want to be in the middle of the the centre three.

Can you fly to NY and connect? If so, I heartily recommend the CWLCY service if you can get it

Tafflyer

I have used Air Berlin in C. It's a lie flat seat similar to CW. Service is ok, German, efficient but boring. Given that it's a third the YQ of BA, a good deal really. Be aware that their long haul flights are predominantly for holidaymakers, so cabins are not always that peaceful.

pauldb

I was going to suggest the same: that you fly to the East Coast and then connect down. NYC or WAS would be the obvious, particularly if you can stop a night or two. As they are 40k avios and the connection (in Y) is 7.5k it actually costs less.

If you only collect around 100k/yr, the BA vs partner debate is usually unfrozen by the BA Amex 241, which you really should consider if you haven't already.

shorthauldad

I'm saving my Avios for an ex-EU trip on CX. No YQ, no APD. What's not to like?

dsf

Indeed - I was pricing up various options to SYD and saw £384 + positioning for AMS-HKG-SYD-HKG-AMS with CX. Ddefinitely a bargain compared to the ex-LHR price with BA (or anyone else)! Albeit for 10% more miles.

Edited to add: I'm finding ex-EU availability to be fantastic to SYD, for what it's worth. For various dates next February/early March I'm finding space with CX, MH, QF, JL and BA, in both directions. I've plumped for MH CDG-oKUL-SYD, QF SYD-xMEL-xDXB-LHR for 219k miles, and I get to experience J on both airlines' A380 ^ And while not as cheap as the CX price, still less than I would pay if I started ex-LHR.

JohnAx

There's no shortage of folks who denegrate the old AA slanted-sleep biz seats, but we three relatively fit normal-sized people have been surprisingly happy with them. OTOH we pay little for them - AA's modest upgrade cost - and might have more reason to complain at greater cost.

Regarding AirBerlin's bargain, note that much of the £295 pp price difference (if I did the numbers correctly) is UK APD. BA and others deserve negative response to their background fees, but the APD deserves a mention in the same regard.

We recently booked a trip ex-DUB on BA. Same savings on APD, and easy to get to from LHR. BA service, of course, if you prefer that.

clubman

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10B143 Safari/8536.25)

Air Berlin's brand new business class looks really good actually.

Sandgrounder

It's a day flight, if you want to protect your pile, book economy for Avios + cash for 25k and £331.60 for two people DUS-MIA on Air Berlin. It's nice and early so you should be able to reserve an 'XL' seat (although I think there is a charge for this). Save the points for another trip, on BA (possibly with a 2-4-1 as previously suggested?).

1Aturnleft

Regrettably it is not fitted to every A330.
Etihad have a financial interest in AB and in order to offer comparable product on codeshares ex DUS/TXL to AUH they have funded a significant upgrade of 4 aircraft to Etihad interior standard in Business Class. This means the staggered fully flat seats. However the remaining 10 or so A330 aircraft are with the angled lie flat seats. Although with the AUH routes in mind, the new config does operate west to the US and Caribbean destinations but it's hit and miss as to whether you'll get it. Easiest way to tell if it's a new J aircraft in the EY style is if on the AB website the seat map shows 6 rows of Business then its the new J seat. 4 rows and its the old angled lie flat.

simon stingray

Many thanks for all your replies and helping me come to a decision.

We have decided to stick to BA metal, connect in JFK and spend a couple of nights in New York before continuing on to MIA.

I managed to get seats on BA001 CWLCY. After reading Bing Bong Boy's trip report and watching video's on youtube, it didn't take long before I was sold on the idea.

As we are based in MAN we have an early morning MAN-LHR flight and then just over 4 hours for us to get from LHR to LCY for a 12.45 departure.

My SO thinks I've lost the plot with this itinerary