Axeman21

I presently have about 400K Avion points, as well as maybe 100K American Airlines. I'll continue to build both those piles through business operations. I'm wondering about converting the Avion to AA (or everthing to BA?). The rewards travel I like to do is almost always my wife and I to Europe or Australia, business or first. Would appreciate thoughts on my best options. Thanks.

JS

mkjr

You have to put in the effort and run the numbers with both charts and factor taxes and fees.

So "it depends".

Yoshi212

To clarify are you talking about BAEC Avios points or is this a reward program (Avion) I'm just not familiar with?

You can't really convert AA miles to BA Avios without a large sacrifice making the transaction rather unappealing.

Where are you traveling from? What ways do you have for earning? Credit Cards (which?) or via business programs?

Mwenenzi

As a wild guess its Royal Bank of Canada avion points.
https://www.rbcrewards.com/#!/index
https://www.rbcrewards.com/travel-re...demption-grid/
There have been questions about RBC avion points before.
Converting/transferring loyalty miles/points from one scheme to another scheme (where possible) usually results in a loss of value.

Axeman21

Yes, I'm taking about RBC Avion points. American and RBC allow points to be converted to each other - or to Avios. Typical trip might be Vancouver to London, maybe Paris. American flies to both places, it just seems that having points collecting on two programs is inefficient.

Mwenenzi

AA & BA are both Oneworld & freq flyer partners. Award availability at the low "saver" is nominally the same, but in practice does not always happen.
BA has high cash surcharges on awards. AA does not have award carrier imposed surcharges, unless it on a BA flight. AA has "anytime" awards at much higher miles costs.

Having multiple ffp’s with low balances is never a good idea. You may never get enough ff miles/points to be of use before they expire. FFP’s are for the medium to long term. However at times it makes sense to have a ff membership with an airline in another alliance. (e.g. Oneworld & Star)
Be mindful of expiry http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-t-expire.html

Freq Flyer Award assistance tools
Use at your own risk. (These are not recommendations)
These links give a guide of ff miles needed. These may not be up to date.
Availability is from the airline ffp web sites/phone.
Award flights are never guaranteed. You need to be flexible with date and route.
Frequent flyer miles/points are not equal to or burn. They are not 1 to 1
If a multi segment award check the rules/cost carefully. With some ffp’s it can be 2 or more awards or cost more ff miles/points than a direct flight.
If the award is on partner airline it may cost more miles/points than an award on the ffp airline.
Some awards/airlines/routes can have cash surcharges, in addition to real taxes.
Real taxes/regulatory fees are the same for all airlines on the same route/class.
Some carrier imposed surcharges can trigger additional real taxes when the flight changes from non-revenue to revenue.
-AwardAce: Compare Award Redemptions Across Airlines In Seconds --> http://www.awardace.com/ Has surcharge indication
-Economical Excursionist's Tools to compare Frequent Flyer Mile Redemptions --> http://www.flyermiler.com/
-http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ast-miles.html --> http://www.awardhacker.com/

guv1976

The American AAdvantage program does not allow its miles to be converted to BA Avios. I'm not sure where you got that notion from. Does AAdvantage really permit its miles to be converted to RBC Avion points? I had not heard that. (The fact that Avion points can be converted to AAdvantage miles does not automatically mean that AAdvantage miles can be converted to Avion points.)

AAdvantage miles can, of course, be redeemed for travel on BA, but that's a very different proposition.

LondonElite

OP is wrong, you are correct, sir.

bhomburg

RBC Avion points can be transferred to AA AAdvantage miles, BA Avios or Cathay Pacific's Asia Miles. This is a one-way street. Once you have transferred Avions to airline programs, they cannot be converted back.
All three are oneworld airlines, and going to Europe you'll likely end up on either BAs or AAs flights.

How far can you plan ahead for those trips? Are you willing to pay substantial ($1,000, per person) cash surcharges in addition to your points?

Generally, AA miles provide a better value than BA Avios when redeemed for premium cabin "saver" transatlantic flight awards as there are no or very low charges in addition to the miles on all airlines they partner with except BA. And going transpacific to Australia, Avios are even less attractive due to the distance-based redemption cost model.
However, AA has gotten very stingy with releasing Business/First award space on their own flights to Europe. If you aren't flexible with dates and /or destinations and cannot book far in advance, chances are much higher to actually find award seats on BA where BAs egregious surcharges kick in on AA awards aw well.

Transferring the Avion points to Asia miles may also be worth looking into, as the program offers reduced-mileage companion awards. Two people going to Australia in business class with Asia Miles require 270k Asia miles, compared to 330k AA miles.

Decide on where you want to go, compare the cost by checking the award charts, check availability - and then transfer.

RBC also has promotional transfer opportunities at regular intervals where you'd get a 50% bonus for transferring Avion points to AA or BA (instead of 1 mile /1 Avios per RBC Avion point, you'd get 1,5). I'd definitely wait for one of those before transferring any points over. I`ve not seem them ever having an Asia Miles promotion.

Yoshi212

One upside to BA Avios is relatively short flights such as in the US, EU, Asia & Australia. So maybe AA for the longer segments for better mileage use & possibility of lower fees and Avios for hopping around.

F 1

In the same boat as the OP. Looking to spend avion points for 2 to Europe out of YVR in J, while also avoiding high YQ. Haven't done extensive research yet, but at this point it's seemingly impossible...

guv1976

Call AA and ask if there is award availability on TN's LAX-CDG nonstop (no surcharges), or on IB's (less than daily) LAX-MAD nonstop (modest surcharges). Of course, you would also need to find SAAver award seats for YVR-LAX on AA/AS. There are also seasonal LAX-DUS nonstops on AB, for which you can search at aa.com.

Another possibility, if you can find JFK-Europe award space on AA/AB/AY/IB, is to call AA and ask about award space on CX's nightly YVR-JFK red-eye nonstop.
​​​​​​
Good luck!

F 1

Those are great tips, thanks!

illico

FYI, RBC Avion point will transfer to AA miles at a 10:7 ratio beginning May 2.