alanw

Well it seems that My Guide to Spending Avios 2019 doesn't cover this specific situation, and I wonder if one of you nice people can give me some guidance.

My goal: BCN-CMH-COU-BCN in business for as little as possible, on OW. This is coming up around 7000€ in paid business for my dates in early May, more than I want to spend.

The best alternative seems to be an open-jaw in premium economy on AA BCN-JFK-CMH / COU-ORD-BCN and then buy an AA ticket for the CMH-ORD. This comes out to around 1050€ for my dates, plus the cost of the domestic connecting flight, which is negligible. So far, so good. But I'd like to upgrade at least the ORD-BCN flight to business. I have no idea how to go about doing this, and the guide just says it must be "done through BAEC". I understand I would have to somehow book those AA flights through BA in order to upgrade them with BA Avios. Does this require a call? What information should I have ready in order to attempt that, and what bucket should I search for?

The other alternative is to book an award for the return; I can see AA availability for that flight in ExpertFlyer, but it doesn't come up on the BA website. What is the best way to find partner awards that wil be booked with BA Avios (or IB Avios, I guess)? In five years of using BAEC I have never found an available award when and where I needed it, so I must be doing something wrong.

Thanks everyone for you help.

eefor jfp

From the sticky (section on Upgrading using Avios):

03 UuA on BA, AA, and IB flights

UuA can also be applied to American Airlines and Iberia flights and/or tickets combining travel on either of these airlines plus BA. The rules that apply to upgrading BA flights generally apply to AA and IB flights, albeit with a few differences.

• Flights must be booked directly through BA. Flights booked through a travel agent are not eligible.
• Flights booked as part of a package holiday (even if booked through BA) are not eligible. This includes bulk tickets and Inclusive Tour (IT) tickets.
• UuA is permitted on eligible published fares only. Those fare classes are: J, C, and D (Business); W (Premium Economy); Y and B (IB Economy); and Y (AA Economy)
• If you cancel an UuA booking, the whole journey must be cancelled.

So you'd have to pay for full Y or W which is going to be $4-5K and then find upgrade space and then use Avios. Probably not worth it overall. Although the beauty of full Y is that it's refundable (unless you combine it with a more restricted fare).