sambb

is this credit card still available, and is there an active link?

gomike

Buy Amex giftcards in the amount that you need to make the threshold.

nsr

Yes. You can sit back and relax.

Happy

BA site is not very good in showing partner award seats that require connections. Known glitch by BA flyers.

Check AA own site for the award seats availability. If you see them available on AA, call BA to book. If BA agent finds the flights, tell him / her you could not book this online. They are very good in waiving the phone booking fee in this case.

Happy

No. What you see is the details of BENEFITS, not to confuse with BONUSES. Everyone sees the same thing.

buschoi

I would try asiamiles.com in your case as you can see a whole week of availability in one search. I found May 4 has a J seat available on CX883. See if you can grab it.

It also looks like CX has plenty of Y availability from SFO pretty much every day in late April and May, including weekends. Can you be more flexible and fly out of SFO?

EDIT to add: nevermind flying out of SFO.... since you are redeeming BA miles, you have to fly one partner all the way through.

Eurosport

thanks

about time they figured it out, it's finally showing up ^

moondog

IIRC, he wants to fly LAX-CAN, which happens to be the exact same route I flew last week. I ended up on CX883 connecting to 8a KA flight to CAN. While I'm in no position to complain since the ticket only set me back $50 and I got to try out CX's new biz product, I'm tempted to use JL when I try to repeat the same trip next month.

Rationale:
-JL has much better food than CX
-LAX-HKG is actually a really long flight, even in business class
-even though CX's seats are completely flat, I felt cramped; it's almost like they were designed with 5'8" passengers in mind
-by contrast, I personally find the JL Neo seats to be quite comfortable
-CX blows away JL (and most other carriers) on the IFE front, but I'm happy as long as I have the map and some decent music; I don't require a 17" screen
-both CX and JL have really big business class cabins, which means that the service isn't much better than that on your typical UA 2-class 777, but I still feel that JL does a better than CX job wrt to adapting to this problem; SQ has solved it completely, but I digress
-even though BA won't commit to it when you book, ime JL hands out hotel vouchers like candy for pax on forced overnights (stark contrast to its more efficiently run competitor, NH); I would take this gamble

All that having been said, one really great thing about CX awards for CAN visitors is, as long as you're willing to take the train to and from Guangzhou, you can tack on an additional segment to anywhere CX or KA flies in Asia.

OT: I really want to try CX F on a future trip (it looked so amazing when I walked on past those 9 seats), but that's a comparatively poor use of BA miles IMO.

All of that complaining aside, I knew this BA card was a sweet deal the second I laid eyes upon it, but the full extent of the sweetness didn't hit home until midway through that first 16-hour (yes, that's how long it took) flight on CX. If and when this offer returns, I plan on expanding my referral efforts even further afield. Basically, I want to get my hands on as many miles as possible because C for $50 each way (plus the hassle of the $2k spend) beats the hell out of paying $600 for Y. While some would argue that the latter would help be build/maintain status, I'd happily trade all of my status away if I could continue to fly in biz for almost nothing.

asuktfo

Thanks a lot Happy. I appreciate you helping out a n00b.

Glad to be part of the forum

buschoi

My focus was on OP's concern not finding any Y or J seat on LAX-HKG in late April or early May. I did not look further back the chain where OP's final destination is, but it does not matter if the time frame and carrier of choice does not offer the award seat.

I have not flown with JL before because of my preference towards the red-eye TPAC flights. Based on this, JL can never be my first choice due to curfew restriction at NRT, but my first time on JL will be this June in Y Ican't find J availability) from YVR. Not the newest plane (744), best seat (Y vs J), or best time (not red-eye) for me, but this is all I can find for the date I want (and I reserved the June ticket back in last November with AA miles). At least this would give me a new experience and compare JL and CX's Y seats. I have been with CX for too long.

moondog

I think we first got this discussion going in the China forum, so it would be understandable if you didn't know the full extent of his plans.

I must admit that CX883 didn't give me much jet lag at all (I'm usually okay going west, but this was better than usual; I got a lot of sleep time during that flight).

MrHalliday

Thanks, very interesting!

I looked at KA route map, can go all the way to Urumqi.
If TPAC on business award, would that book into coach or first on Dragonair?

moondog

C is the top class on KA narrow bodies IME (in fact, row numbers start at around 10).

anacapamalibu

[QUOTE=buschoi;13539873]I would try asiamiles.com in your case as you can see a whole week of availability in one search. I found May 4 has a J seat available on CX883. See if you can grab it.

^

Thanks for the tip about asiamiles.com. Will check this out.

In the last couple years I have flown TPAC in the most high demand
time periods, in business class, all on award miles. What benefits
are elite status when you have a business class ticket? ...not much.

sucker777

Where'd it appear?