Steven Trembacki

Long time reader, first time poster..this is a great forum and I've learned a lot over the years of how to get the most from my business travel. So thank you in advance to all the helpful people.

Prior to moving to UK, I was AA platinum in the states for years. Lost my AA status before moving to the UK, and I started from scratch and chose a fresh start with BAEC.

The main reason I chose BAEC, and stuck with AA in the states was that my wife is British, family near London, my family near Chicago.... so we fly ORD-LHR at least 3-4 times a year for family/leisure. We prefer direct flights as we have a little one, so I didn't go with skyteam/star alliance as most of those routes stopover in CDG/AMS, etc. 90% of the reason I put in any effort towards all this status and mileage accrual is so I can use my business travel to rack up miles/points to cut costs of going back and forth to see family.

So now I've recently attained Silver status, have some avios and I want to look to redeem avios for flights home to ORD this year...problem is, LHR and BA have such insane taxes and fees that it's a joke to use avios on that route. I'm better off just paying cash it seems.....so my question is....is there a way to avoid this through the alliance, like booking with AA or other? Nothing I've tried seems to work, though I'm far from an expert at this stuff. When I was AA, I use to easily use miles for biz class flights to and from UK and only had the small amount of taxes to pay so it was definitely worthwhile.

Did I overall make a mistake and choose the wrong loyalty program tying myself to BA and LHR's exorbitant taxes/surcharges? I see BA often rated as one of the best programs for flyers, so maybe I'm missing something. If my main goal is free/upgraded flights from LHR-ORD should I have chosen a different program?

Lastly, is there something I can do with Aer Lingus if I fly from BHX? I live between LHR and BHX, and might not mind the stopover in Dublin (especially since you process US customs there) if it gets me cheap flights with Avios.

Thanks in advance for any help.

mikeyfly

Welcome to FT Steven Trembacki

If you're flying between ORD and LHR in Y then yes, Avios redemptions are a complete waste of time unless very last minute or one way. The Y cash fares are often £275 each upwards if booked in advance.

You are not going to get free upgrades on BA - they only dish out the odd "operational upgrade" which is suiting themselves on over booked cabins... check the thread on all things BAEC

Your guide to the Executive Club, attaining status and earning Avios | 2019 edition

etiene

You get a lot of whinging on the AA forum about BA surcharges - normally in a thread about how they cannot find any AA award availability...! The two [presumably] go hand-in-hand - BA justify much better award availability by making it more expensive through surcharges.

It is pretty easy to calculate the value you are getting per mile with a redemption - just take the surcharges into account when you do. You can either give the nominal 1p per Avios to work out the "cash cost" of the redemption, or work back from the cash price to see the Avios value and see if you're getting better than the nominal 1p. Then you can decide whether the redemption makes sense*.

The thing to wrap your head around is that in BAEC the Avios only pay the fare. This is why economy long-haul redemptions are generally rubbish - the fare can be as little as 50p each way!

*There are other factors, of course: chiefly flexibility.

ajeleonard

You'll get better value from using Avios to book domestic AA flights than transatlantic. Pay cash for the flights to London

Brainless69

flatlander

If you are after long-haul economy redemptions as your main benefit from the FF programme, then BAEC is not the best choice in the world.

If you're after easy top status, upgrade with FF miles, business or first redemptions, or short haul redemptions in Europe then BAEC is a stronger choice (over AA).

So, sorry if you were trying to get the low-cash long haul economy flights home to visit the family with BAEC, that's the worst use case I'm afraid. Essentially, you always have to pay economy-ticket amounts of cash to BA for long-haul and if you use Avios as well you get to sit at (or nearer) the front for the economy-ticket cash outlay. What you can't get with BAEC is a very low-cash seat on the long-haul aircraft.

BAEC is more about travel value received for cash spend than an absolutely low cash spend.

Ancient Observer

flatlander,
your last sentence is a great summary of the situation.