Myself and my wife are returning back from Amsterdam around July 23rd. What are my best options to J to LAX - I am willing to fly from any reasonable airport in Europe but I really prefer to fly straight into LAX as my first stop in the USA.

We currently have J tickets via BA from AMS to NYC on July 19th, but our plans changed and we have to be in AMS for a few more days and then fly straight back to LAX. BA wants $500 for the change fee (which doesn't seem very exorbitant) but given that I have to buy tickets from NYC to LAX on the 23rd, I thought it might be worth it to investigate options to fly straight home.

I have 120K United miles and 300K American miles and 100K in Singapore and Asia Miles. Also about 300K Ultimate Rewards.

AA is showing 110K miles each and United is showing zilch as well. My specific asks from this group:

1. Are their any FF programs that I have missed?
2. Any other options for returning in upper class from Europe around the 23rd (I am flexible with the date and can return anytime till the 26th).
3. Any way to avoid the BA change fee now that they are in the middle of a strike?
4. I also have 250K in Aeroplan miles - but they are asking for $500 in fees for each ticket. If I am spending a shitload of miles I was hoping to avoid expensive fees!

Thanks - Levi

1. Main airline alliances are Star (UA SQ AC) , Oneworld (AA BA IB AB) & Skyteam (DL AF/KLM) and other airlines in each alliance.
If the operating airline does not have an award seats very little/no hope that a ff partner will have awards on the operating airline.
2. Getting 2 business class awards close in is a tough ask. Something may come up days/hours before. Keep looking.
3 Look in the BA forum.
4. Such is life with ffps.

Good luck

New York or LAX are routes not affected by the BA strike. They aren't operated by the 'mixed fleet' cabin crew who voted to go on strike. The chance of any service disruption entitling you to a refund or free change is as near zero as it can get. Don't count on that.

Finding two low-level award seats in business class to LAX in the height of the summer travel season at this time is an exercise in futility. If you want to use points and minimize cash outlay, you'd have to bite the bullet and redeem your AA miles for AAnytime awards or use your UR points to buy a ticket through the UR portal. There may be something coming up last minute though, so check constantly.
Going the AA route should carry minimal fees (less than $100) in addition to your miles. You cannot use partners on AAnytime awards, so you'd basically have a choice of AMS-DFW-LAX with the transatlantic flight on a not-very-premium 763, or AMS-PHL-LAX, with the transatlantic flight on a - nicer - A330, but followed by a long transcon in a pmUS A321 domestic F seat.
Edit: the AMS-PHL flight is not on an A330 but on a 757. The new lie-flat seats in those are pretty nice, especially when flying with a companion. Remains that you have to spend six hours on arguably the worst premium product AA has (the old US domestic F cabin on their A321) for the domestic leg between PHL and LAX.


I would check the fare rules of your existing BA ticket and see how much they'd charge for changing the destination to LAX in addition to the date change first.

Google "LAX airport wiki" for a list of all nonstop flights to/from LAX, sorted by carrier. For any oneworld carriers that you find (e.g., AB from DUS, IB from MAD), do an award search on aa.com. For any Star Alliance carriers that you find, do an award search at united.com.

Good luck.

Find out how much the change + fare difference will be, because for most of these options (except booking through UA, which currently doesn't show any availability), the taxes/fuel surcharges will already be a few hundred. Not sure if it's worth spending 100k+ miles 头save a few hundred.

Not on AA. AA generally does not charge anything but taxes for AA-operated flights when redeeming AA miles. An all-AA-metal award AMS-PHL/DFW-LAX will incur $47.06 in cash outlay per person to cover taxes, that's it.

I had to compromise a bit and so found a way out. BA agreed to waive the change fees and moved the return to 22nd. And I have seen that there is close-in availability for AA J NYC-LAX via BA for 37.5K Avios each - so the idea is to check the BA site daily and grab a couple of seats for the 22nd or 23rd as and when they open. I had some orphan Avios sitting around for a while so this is a good use. And there is very little cash outlay and the original tickets are put to full use as well. Of course if there is no J availability for NYC-LAX I will probably have to curse my fate and buy Mint since I was planning to try it at least once this year. So that is the plan for now :-)

Thanks all!!

Somehow it all worked out. I managed to find to biz class tickets on United EWR-LAX for 50K each and had a perfect trip.

Delta One LAX-JFK on MR points
BA J JFK-AMS-JFK for just $1K each using AARP and Chase 10% booked in Dec.
Marriott points for the entire stay in AMS

EWR-LAX in United biz.