Originally Posted by BAeuro

Just looking for opinions on the cheapest way to earn 40TPs. I don’t want to stay overnight (which increases prices) and I would need to go at the weekend.

Any ideas?

Originally Posted by nomadicted

Would value thoughts on this. I've priced up an itinerary on matrix (BUD-LIH-BUD) for next April. The fare bucket is J + I, price is roughly 3750 GBP (1,745,000 HUF) for 3 people (2 adults, 1 child). Fare basis is AA INX1C8S4 in both directions. I've spoken with AA several times today to try to get this ticketed, but they keep telling me that they do not see any I inventory on certain segments and the one time they found J + I on the outbound legs it pushed all the return legs into R and therefore way above the Matrix quoted price. When the sales agent (who was very helpful and patient) went to colleagues in the fare team, the response was that something is happening to push the return legs such that I cannot be utilized, but they were unable to specify what. One of the agents did mention that the fare team said that there can be published and unpublished fares, which would seem to suggest that the Matrix fares are unpublished as the fare team and agent said only published fares are able to be selected when trying to price/ticket.

When looking through the fare rules, neither the agent nor I could find anything that would seem to preclude the combination. Matrix has been returning these fares consistently over the past 7-10 days across a variety of travel dates that I have looked at, so if it's a mistake it's a persistent one.

Has anyone run into this type of issue with Hawaii (or other) - related flights? If so, any guidance? Any thoughts on how to ticket on BA as I tried them, as well, but they insisted that they couldn't force the AA flight numbers on BA-operated legs). Eager to book these, but it's unclear if they're phantom fare combos or what. Thanks for any assistance.

ITINERARY
Budapest (BUD) to Lihue (LIH) - Wed, Apr 5

American 6600 Dep: 7:20AM Arr: 9:05AM 2h 45m Airbus A320 Business (J)
OPERATED BY BRITISH AIRWAYS
   Layover in LHR  2h 10m
American 6964 Dep: 11:15AM Arr: 1:35PM 7h 20m Airbus A380 Business (I)
OPERATED BY BRITISH AIRWAYS
   Layover in BOS  7h 0m
American 2110 Dep: 8:35PM Arr: 11:43PM 6h 8m Airbus A321 (Sharklets) Business (I)
   Layover in LAX  9h 47m
American 265 Dep: 9:30AM Arr: 12:21PM 5h 51m Airbus A321neo First (I)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lihue (LIH) to Budapest (BUD) - Tue, Apr 18

American 266 Dep: 1:00PM Arr: 9:33PM 5h 33m Airbus A321neo First (I)
   Layover in LAX  10h 27m
American 1632 Dep: 8:00AM Arr: 4:36PM 5h 36m Airbus A321 (Sharklets) Business (I)
   Layover in BOS  2h 39m
American 6963 Dep: 7:15PM Arr: 6:50AM 6h 35m Airbus A380 Business (I)
OPERATED BY BRITISH AIRWAYS
   Layover in LHR Thu, Apr 20 3h 0m
American 6601 Dep: 9:50AM Arr: 1:25PM 2h 35m Airbus A320 Business (I)
OPERATED BY BRITISH AIRWAYS

FARE AND BOOKING DETAILS

Provide this information to a travel agent to help them match the fares found.
Make sure to provide the exact booking and fare codes shown.

Fare for 2 adults

Fare 1: Carrier AA INX1C8S4 BUD to LIH     HUF 209,264.00
  Passenger type ADT, round trip fare, booking code J, I
  Covers BUD-LHR (Business), LHR-BOS (Business), BOS-LAX (Business), LAX-LIH (First)

Fare 2: Carrier AA INX1C8S4 LIH to BUD     HUF 209,264.00
  Passenger type ADT, round trip fare, booking code I
  Covers LIH-LAX (First), LAX-BOS (Business), BOS-LHR (Business), LHR-BUD (Business)

Originally Posted by RADIOSUTCH

I booked DUB-LHR-BOS-PHX-LAX and return LAX-PHX-BOS-LHR-DUB for £1500 in Club/American 1st) for 720 tier points in mid August 22. A380 both ways , weeeee!
Had to book on AA from ITA Matrix as the BA site is very poor and wouldn't let me book AA flights, errors all over the place . Anyway to cut a long story short, the AA booking now appears on my BA page BUT missing two legs, LAX-PHX and PHX-BOS. And BA show it as 540 tier points so deffo two flights missing.
Full schedule on AA but missing two legs on BA. BA can't help, there's a surprise, so have emailed AA and still waiting for a reply. Given I need those 180 points, to retain Gold am I resigned to arguing about it after the event with BA or any suggestions on fixing it ?
I have to say the BA site is not very good, my flight booking come and go, and now this and so on... IT is BA is notoriously bad I hear.

Screenshot below ( price has marginally increased)

Originally Posted by higham44

I thought that this TPR would have had to be booked 180 days ahead, but delighted to see that there are plenty of dates in August available at the same price for booking now. Am seriously tempted to book to get to Gold, plus the lure of A380s is hard to resist.
Thanks for the heads up!

Originally Posted by MaxFlyer

The only issue for me is that the US domestic segments are in standard recliner seats especially the 5+ hours flights.

Originally Posted by higham44

Not ideal I guess, but perhaps a small sacrifice to make to gain 720 TPs (plus positioning flights' TPs) to secure Gold.

Originally Posted by RichieMc

I’d use powertools to book directly on aa.com. Alternatively, was there really no close equivalent with a BA fare? In general BA is better at booking these things in my experience. Otherwise powertools to aa.com has usually worked.

If none of that works, you might try slightly different routings like BUD LHR JFK LAX LIH or similar. Or maybe going through SFO or DFW or PHX.

And we’ll done for getting the family to agree to one of these insane runs!!!

Originally Posted by petez

Can anyone suggest a good Tier Point calculator site - there used to be a very good one based on a speadsheet by someone called Tom I think but can't find it now ... any ideas

Originally Posted by petez

Can anyone suggest a good Tier Point calculator site - there used to be a very good one based on a speadsheet by someone called Tom I think but can't find it now ... any ideas

Originally Posted by Saint4805

Hey all,

My membership year ends on 8 October and so I'm looking to rack up 450 TPs as soon as my new membership year starts on 9 October which would give me Silver status for the rest of that membership year and the year after. Would appreciate if someone could check my plan and let me know if there are any flaws.

11 October - ABZ - LHR (Economy) = 5 TPs
12-17 October - LHR - SOF return (5 night BA holiday flying in Business Class - double points) = 320 TPs
18 October - LHR - SOF (Economy) = 10 TPs
20 October - SOF - NEW via LHR (Business) = 120 TPs