rapunzeljoy

I have a bunch of Avios points that I'm trying to get rid of. I'm going from Chicago to Quito in August and I've tried searching a bunch of different ways for business class flights.
-Britishairways.com gives some cryptic error about not being able to book connecting flights and returns no results
-Awardnexus, which I found in the sticky post at the top of this forum, returns no results
-Aa.com returns flights in business class but the sticky post mentions that avios points can only be used to book milesaaver flights. I think that means the business is out of the question. From what I understand milesaaver flights are the cheapest, most non-refundable tickets that AA issues.

So, in the end, does that mean that it's impossible to use Avios to fly from Chicago to Quito in business?

corporate-wage-slave

No, though you would be best to book slightly further in advance, I can see reasonably good availability in November, for example. I was expecting to suggest the usual problem here, namely that BA.com doesn't do connections very well and so you would be best to search MIA-UIO and separately ORD to MIA. However the first example I tried worked, somewhat unexpectedly!

Welcome to Flyertalk rapunzeljoy and welcome to the BA Forum. I hope you get a chance to check the Stickies since there is a lot of information there on how to make use of Avios.

rapunzeljoy

Did you do that search via ba.com?

corporate-wage-slave

Yes.

boboqui

Call BA at 1-800-247-9297 to book the award ticket. You may have to pay a $25 booking fee, which may be waived since their website was buggy.

onobond

Since you've got help from c-w-s for your main question, allow me just to clarify the term MileSAAver. AA's redemption tickets are in two categories, MileSAAver and AAnytime. This is regardless of which cabin you choose, i.e., there are both Economy, Business/First and First MileSAAver tickets to find. The earlier the search, the bigger chance to get a premium cabin seat. This compares to BA's Off-peak category. The AAnytime tickets, also in all 3 categories comes double the amount of AA miles, and are basically 'almost' available AAnytime, with adjusted restrictions for day of travel, and expected high load of premium rev-ticket pax. These tix, both MileSAAvers and AAnytime, are changeable and cancellable, albeit the latter with deduction of an administrative fee.

As examples that the MileSAAver tickets not are "the cheapest, most non-refundable tickets that AA issues", I personally have used MileSAAvers for F flights JFK to HKG with CX, and NRT with JL, business flights from both JFK and LAX to the same destinations, with the same carriers. I can assure you that both hard- and software were nothing near cheap