To answer my own question, I called again and again and finally met a helpful and competent agent. Thanks!

Hey guys, I'm one of the many that took advantage of the Chase BA offer.
I was looking at this thread but am still confused. It sounds like you can use BA miles to take AA to Canada and then ?? from Canada to Europe/Africa without having to pay the hefty BA fees.
How do you handle the routing though? Is the only way to call BA and book through a phone agent or is there some way to do this online to check the routing/fees etc. ?

You're a bit mistaken, I'm afraid. While you can certainly take AA to Canada and connect to BA to fly onward, doing so does not result in measurably lower fees (i.e. your still going to get hit with YQ, same as ex-USA).

Thanks for the quick reply. So for example lets say you wanted to go from the west coast to africa, there really wouldn't be a significant difference in doing BA vs AA-canada-BA-africa ?

Correct! YQ will be charged based on the BA segments in your itinerary.

BA
 

I hope this is the correct thread. I am new to FT and redemption of anything but Aeroplan.
I want to go last minute (next month) YHZ - NBO for 2 tickets.
I have 200k BA miles (from last years RBC promo) as well as 400k current Avion points which could be converted to additional BA miles or AA miles (1.5 x bonus can be huge for me).
AA shows 200,000 miles and $ 346 in taxes and surcharges
BA shows 180,000 miles (say only 120,000 Avion points) but a ridiculous $ 1349.52 in taxes and surcharges.
Is there any way around this? I've read about some tricks but can't seem to make them work.

No. there is no trick to get pass BA fuel surcharge - the "trick" you allude to is not for YQ, but for avoiding APD by not using LHR as destination. There is no way to avoid YQ and to Africa the YQ is, as you said, ridiculous high.

So fly AA and pay 20,000 more miles or fly BA and pay 20,000 less miles - this means whether you think 20,000 miles worth $1K. The answer is so obvious that I am sure you dont need anyone to point that out.

Actually I am not sure if the $346 is a correct figure unless you get this from AAdvantage desk. AA does not fly to NBO, it would be on BA for some segments in order for you to get to NBO. AA now charges YQ on BA flights effective Oct 1. You may want to double check the AA taxes and fees if the $346 is not a current figure.

Those taxes and surcharges are insane...it's a shame AA is charging these on BA redemptions now. I much preferred routing from US-EU through Canada on BA and not paying the extra charges than flying direct and paying these exorbitant fees.

For those that haven't realised, the UK Air Passenger Duty is sometimes the reason for the higher fees when the UK is part of the itinerary, which is unfortunate for airlines using UK hubs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Passenger_Duty

It is typically whether fuel surcharges are included or not that explains the difference between airlines flying to the UK. Through journeys are more tricky, and you should might want to double-check, if you are doing an onward flight to another country within 24 hours of arrival into the UK, that you are not being charged more than you should. It is the return FROM the UK that gets taxed, so you may wish to consider open-jaws with UK inbound if you're travelling from US to Europe.

-Karl