MOC991

Feel free to move this if needed mods. I've researched as much as I think possible so I want to ask some questions.

Background:
I've been considering using BA Avios for some time. I'll be based mainly out of RDU(AA flights only) or ILM when US Air merges. My main incentive is that I can transfer AMEX MR and Chase UR points, and the US domestic redemptions on Avios are way better than going through AA. US Airways made a point of not caring and I just redeemed all my points so its the perfect time to change. Their US domestic awards sucked anyways. I doubt merging will improve them. I would be flying US domestic AA, but I'd also like to fly to the UK, Germany, Switzerland, and France. Air Berlin is a pretty big draw for Germany.

Questions:
-Do the fuel surcharges/taxes ruin the UK flights or is it easy to avoid by not flying the return transatlantic out of the UK? ($900 for transatlantic Avios redemption flights to LHR)
-Is it really that hard to earn miles from flying or not?(like earn:burn rations I suppose... I don't really get that yet)
-Are there fare classes on AA that prevent you from earning on BA?
-So I have to fly four BA segments a year for status? (not that hard, just checking)
-Does BA earn on AA transatlantic like the RDU-LHR flight?
-I don't see any Avios availability for Air Berlin. How do you book these flights with Avios?

KenJohn

The fundamental question you need to ask yourself is what YOU want to get out of a frequently flyer programme.

If are only interested in redeeming tickets, then AA is the better programme if you wish to travel transatlantic especially you are happy flying economy.

If you are paying to fly business to Europe and want to achieve OW status quickly (for lounge access, etc), then BA is the better programme.

If you pay to fly a lot domesticly, and are not interested in free upgrades but want to achieve OW status quickly (for lounge access, etc), then BA is the better programme.

If you want to get free upgrades and you are able to achieve status through paid flights, then AA is the better programme.

Sixth Freedom

Swanhunter

An excellent summary. ^ BA EC is more suited to the frequent premium cabin flyer than the frequent redeemer or those seeking EXP style upgrade perks. Not withstanding loopholes like the current MFU levels it isn't the best programme of low cost redemptions.

MOC991

Thank you for the responses. I think I might be missing something?

Well at this point, I would really rather have BA though since I have Amex MR and Chase UR points. I don't understand why you are saying it is harder to redeem miles with BA. It is only 9000-18000 miles for domestic awards. I realize it is distance based which is why AA would actually suck. The majority of the time, I would be on the east coast or possibly flying to the Midwest. I challenge the basis of it being harder to earn miles and redeem them. Maybe that is based on long-haul flights or making UK-based flights which may require a lot of points, but lots of short US domestic flights would make BA better for redemptions. My only long haul flights will be the transatlantic flights so maybe I will have to pay for those which will earn me more miles and tier points anyways.

RDU-ORD, BA, 9000 Avios + $5


RDU-ORD, AA, 25,000 miles + $85?


So do you earn less than 100% when flying coach or am I missing something? It looks like Air Berlin would be the only place where I'd earn 25% instead of 100% on discounted coach with BA. Then I would earn 0.5 tier points with AA on some discounted coach.

If I earn the same amount of miles for the same distance, but I need less miles for the same distance, wouldn't that make BA better? Also, it looks like I would earn status much more easily with tier points, pay a lot less fees for domestic US and flights within Europe other than UK fuel surcharges, and have more flexibility with transferring points and other BA-exclusive partners like Aer Lingus which I have used. I would of course try to avoid any 25% coach earning fares, and try to travel first or the equivalent on occasion when reasonable.

So what am I missing that keeps making people suggest I could use miles better on AA?

nux

There is no reason you can't join BAEC for the sole purpose of redeeming on AA domestic flights, and move MR and UR points to BAEC as and when required.

Important to bear in mind, that you must have MileSAAver Award availability on AA. Using AA miles, you can book AAnytime Awards for double miles to redeem on ANY flight. But if you check availability first before transferring MR/UR then you should be fine.

BA also charges per segment, whereas AA does not. Short flights with no connections on AA are good value with BAEC, but once you start adding connections then the AAdvantage program takes the err, AAdvantage.


Whether you should join BAEC or AA to credit revenue (paid for) flights and gain status is another issue. Generally, it is easier to gain equivelant status on BA flying premium classes than AA, but easier on economy flying AA than BA.

neuromancer

You earn 100% Avios (but not tier points) if you fly BA, AA and IB in coach, even discounted. You'll earn 25% if you fly other carriers. People recommend AA for redemptions if you want to fly transatlantic (AA and BA equally), as you pay a lot of surcharges with avios. If you fly AB or EI, there are no surcharges (for now at least).
Also, transatlantic award availability with BA metal seems to have decreased a lot recently.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Also, note that there is no "U.K. fuel surcharge." There is a surcharge when redeeming Avios for flights on BA, as well as for flights on partners, with some exceptions. There is no surcharge for redeeming Avios for flights on AA within the Americas, but there are hefty surcharges for redeeming Avios for TATL and TPAC flights on AA.

In addition to the Avios advantage to redeeming for short-distance, domestic direct flights on AA, there are two other distinct benefits:

1) no close-in award booking fee (AA charges an extra $75 for this, unless one has AAdvantage Gold or higher status); and

2) you can cancel an Avios redemption on AA and have the Avios reinstated, and only forfeit the fees paid at time of initial booking (typically, $2.50 per domestic segment). By contrast, AA charges $150 to reinstate AAdvantage miles redeemed for an award ticket.

If possible, it's best to have a stash of both AA miles and BA Avios; then, you can use whichever "currency" is most advantageous for a particular redemption.

KenJohn

You earn 50% of Tier Points and 50% of BA miles when flying discounted economy; same as AA. Same for US domestic flights and international.
You earn a lot more on BA programme compared with AA programme in Business or First.

MOC991

I want to clarify that I'm not really considering using AAdvantage or comparing the programs. I am just trying to make sure that earning on BA will work when many of my flights may be domestic AA flights.

Also, I don't want to join solely for transferring points to BA. I would like to earn status and get redemptions, and BA has the added benefit of being the only airline where I can transfer from both. Thanks guv1976 and neuromancer. Your posts really got to the crux of what I was confused about.

Tier Points:
I am disappointed to see you have to use full coach AA fares to earn 100% tier points. Now I understand why they were saying it makes more sense if you fly premium. That is the only caveat that is holding me back now, but I could take the hit on earning with the really cheap fares sometimes and try to fly first on some flights.

US Domestic Redemptions:
I've found great prices for mostly east coast destinations with connections.
RDU-CID 18,000
RDU-MIA 18,000
RDU-MCO 24,000
RDU-LGA 9,000
I think the 24,000 is still reasonable since you would use that many with any other airline and you earn at the same rate still on AA.

I could not find any availability from RDU to west coast destinations like LAS, LAX, SEA, but other than LAS I don't really head out that way. I hope that would also change if CLT becomes a hub, but there is really no telling and I'm not counting on it.

Transatlantic Redemptions:
I did look at using Avios upgrades for premium economy. It was showing prices like $1,300 with 20,000 Avios. That seems pretty high to still be using 20,000 Avios, although I realize $1300 is about what coach would cost at some times. Also, I'm guessing the discounted coach would still earn 50% tier points on transatlantic so that sucks. That isn't too bad though I could book RDU-JFK-LHR with the transatlantic being on BA metal.(Can I make that a stopover?) Is there any other way to redeem through partner airlines though or get a lower fee. I don't see Air Berlin flights showing up at all so I get the impression you can't redeem for Air Berlin transatlantic.

So basically my worries are down to transatlantic redemptions and earning tier points on AA.

KenJohn

Under the BA scheme, you will be charged BA Miles for each flight segment; i.e. the equivalent of two separate tickets RDU-JFK and JFK-LHR. So you might as well book two separate tickets and arrange your own stopover.

The AA scheme would treat this is one flight redemption.

If you are looking at any transatlantic redemption flights and object to fuel surcharges, BA is not the programme to choose. Go with any US airline frequent flyer programme.
If you are looking at AA domestic redemption flights (economy or first), BA Avios redemptions worthwhile. However, fewer redemption seats are available to BA compared with AA scheme members.

windowontheAside

Did you check each sector separately? The availability checker on BA.com isn't good at putting connecting flights together. Alternatively, use AA.com to plan your itinerary (using MilesAAver availability) as that will put together the connecting flights and then you can book those through BA - but remember that you'll pay for each sector so an indirect trip is not always great value.

By the way, RDU was my home hub for a while in the 90s. Loved living in the area and miss it a lot!

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

AB flights are bookable with Avios, as long as there are available award seats. BA does not (currently) collect any surcharges for AB redemptions, even on TATL flights.

Note that if you use Avios to fly AA from RDU to an AB gateway, and then AB for the TATL flight, you will be charged BAEC's higher "multi-partner" redemption rate, unless you book the AA flight as a separate award.

Another way to minimize surcharges on some TATL redemptions is to convert some BAEC Avios to Iberia Plus Avios, and then redeem the Iberia Plus Avios for TATL flights on IB. Much lower surcharges that way. But in order to transfer BAEC Avios to Iberia Plus, you must have an Iberia Plus account open and funded for at least 90 days.

MOC991

Thanks for all the help. Maybe we should change the title to "US East Coast based Earning/Redeeming Avios" This definitely sounds good compared to the crap I've had to go through with US Airways. I am actually based out of ILM, but I lived in RDU for a while and will probably move back there, and eventually may relocate to Germany so who knows.

I perfectly understand that the more connections and the longer the distance the more Avios you need. That makes more sense with 9,000 rather than 25,000 for RDU-LGA so I like that better. I would of course avoid redeeming when it exceeds 25,000 and I understand it is only on AAsaver for domestic. I understand that you can get better redemptions sometimes when it isn't tied to distance like AA, but I don't mind as long as I can get it on some east coast flights and transatlantic.

I saw flights on AASaver that did not show up for BA availability so I'm assuming that means it isn't all AASaver seats, or are you saying that it may not show available AASaver seats but you can book them?

For the transatlantic flights, I have found an Air Berlin flight which does have less fees as I suspected:


If redeeming on other airlines can reduce the fees for transatlantic flights, then I am all set. I already have enough Chase UR and Amex MR to redeem a few domestic flights or one transatlantic. Something I couldn't do with any other airline. I want to keep my miles and status all with one airline since I will probably just do barely enough to get Bronze in the short term. When you say for Iberia to be funded, does that mean with miles in it for 90 days?

Thanks for that info. If I did Air Berlin, I understand that it costs the same to book together or separate for the connection, or more since the surcharge will apply? I was asking if paying for the discounted coach AA fares for RDU-LHR would only be 50% tier points? If so, then I would just book through LHR so I get the transatlantic flight on BA to get the 100% tier points.

Are there any other airlines where you can redeem without the surcharge like Air Berlin for transatlantic?

You guys seem really disenchanted or discouraged about the program, but it sounds better than AA by a long shot at least based on my situation. There is just that annoying bit about 50% tier points on AA coach.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

There is an entire thread in this forum about redeeming Avios for flights with no or minimal fuel surcharges. Search thread titles for either "no surcharge" or "no fuel surcharge"; I forget which phrase I used when I created the thread.

Yes, an Iberia Plus account must be open for 90 days and have at least 1 Avios in it in order to transfer Avios between BAEC and Iberia Plus.