Hello - Help needed from a complete newbie.

Every quarter I fly to Australia but didn't realise that BA no longer flew BKK - LHR legs for flights booked on QF. This means as the flights are on Emirates it is going to leave me 40 points short of Silver.

A couple of questions if someone can help.

Do I get tier points if I book a flight using Avios? Is it worth waiting to get through on the phone to the BAEC - are the helpful in these matters? Also any recommendations for cheap ways to get 40 tier points.

Cheers in advance for any help.

Rattlin

No you do not earn avios/TP's for an award flight.

BA will allow a 2 week extension to your membership year, but will almost certainly not lower your TP requirement.

Book a cheap BA return flight to AMS/JER or similar and hope for a POUG to business, which will earn 40 TP's for the business sector and 10 TP's for an economy sector.

Well that doesn't seem too bad a price...but how do I price up and book such a routing? On aa.com it only allows you to specify 6 flights/segments at one time?

The price may go down in future sales, so unless you are in a hurry I wouldn't book anything yet.

To book on aa.com, specify the important stops (I guess BRU, LCY, LAS, HNL) and let aa.com figure out the intermediate flights and stops.

Alternatively you can ask dutch_122 (his/her job is a travel agent) by private message to create a reservation for you on BA's systems; you can then pay for the reservation by telephoning BA.

I suggest you post your schedule you have here before paying for it in case anyone has any suggestions or spots any flaws.

Thanks for that....specifying the major stops works in that it produces the right route but the pricing seems crazy at c. £6,000. for:

AMS-LHR-LCY-JFK-LAS-LAX-HNL-LAX-LAS-JFK-LCY-LHR-AMS. For some reason it won't find any flights starting in BRU. I will have a play with dates and starting destinations.

Welcome to FT, rattlinrob!Do you have an immediate problem with a membership year soon to expire?

Otherwise, if you don't have to fly via BKK and you can re-route some future trips, you can still earn TPs for the whole trip if you fly via HKG, KUL or SIN - although the exact number will depend on how you do it, and the number of Avios earned may be very different because of the different airlines involved. But you probably already know this.

Thanks Nux for clearing up the Avios. I didn't expect BA to move the TP threshold just wondered if they can be helpful in finding flights to make up the difference.

Globaliser I fly June/July and my year ends just after in July. The flights are booked by my office in Sydney after I tell them if I want to stop off. In this case told them Bangkok as previously got TP for all legs. As I said didn't realise QF and BA had fallen out. The problem I have is that the flights the Aussies book are chargeable on any change so they won't do it - or so they say.

The BRU-HEL-LHR/LCY-JFK-LAX-HNL return run is pricing up at £2,601 at the moment.

Use ITA to find the seats/fare as detailed in the Wiki at the top of the thread.

Once you know the dates that are available you can punch these into AA to price it up and buy it.

So are you flying SYD-BKK-DXB-LHR with BKK-DXB-LHR on EK?
If you are booked under a QF code you should earn avios but not TP's for the EK metal flights.

If you have another TP earning flight within 2 weeks of your year end date, you can call to be given a 2 week grace period.
Otherwise, any eligible business class flight will earn 40+ TP's.

Also if flying in discount economy then you're likely to only earn 0.25 points for each mile as well, so it's a double slap in the face! :td:

Nux actually LHR-SYD via SIN but classed as one flight. Then SYD-BKK-DXB-LHR. As you say no TP on the EK which has caused my problem. I won't have any more company travel so am looking for a cheap break where I can get the balance of points.

Flash - tell me about it - they even put me on a jetstar flight once SYD - BKK and I only got 10 TP I think

Don't worry, I feel your pain! I have a QF metal flight LHR-DXB which I'll credit to BA then after that I'll switch it to my QF number for DXB-PER, PER-DXB, DXB-LHR which are on QF code EK flights.

you can also start in LUX and end in KOA/OGG sometimes that puts prices down

Did you allow AA to find flights marketed by oneworld as well as by AA?

I spotted a few days in late May at £2150.

if you do it repeatedly they will probably get sour at some point