I am new to the BA world. Dumb question here: what is YQ?

I plan to use my 100K BA miles for AA flights to Peru. I hope the fees will not be outrageous. Is Lan Air a good option?

YQ is the code for Fuel Surcharge.

LA is a very good option. LA also is one of the 2 OneWorld partners that does not have YQ when you redeem the One partner award of the BA program. The other partner is AA. All other OneWorld partners charge YQ, but none as outrageous as BA itself on BA flights.

Thanks for the good news on Lan and AA. I could never guess YQ for fuel surcharge.

In fact, I think that using Lan Air from North America to Easter Island via Lima or Santiago is probably the best use of BA miles. Easter Island isn't any extra miles.

If I wasn't so hung up on the Maldives, that's how I'd use my miles.

Is it possible to make a stop at Lima? My big trip for next year is Peru. If Easter Island comes free, so much better.

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BA permits free en route stopovers on award tickets -- even those on partner carriers -- as long as the stopover point is along the "most direct route" between origin and destination. BAEC customer service should be able to tell you whether LIM is along the "most direct route" from your origination city to IPC.

ok... Now I got myself the BA Chase Card and soon 100K miles. I try booking some award on the BA website for IAH - LIM . No availabilities. What are the strategy for booking AA flights with BA miles? BA website is pretty unfriendly for partner awards.

LA doesn't serve IAH. You might be able to work some AA flights into the mix without completely killing the deal because LIM isn't so far away (using two or more partners triggers a distance based award chart, which is a deal breaker for flights to places like SIN, but not so much for regional stuff). That having been said, I have a hunch that getting yourself to a Lan gateway will probably be your best bet.

ETA: I just noticed that you want to fly AA (was thrown off my your Easter Island interest expressed previously). If that's the case, I suggest you perform an award search on aa.com first. In theory, BA should be able to fetch the same seats you can get there, though I wouldn't be shocked if AA held some inventory back for its own members.

Thanks Moondog. I notice the terrible deal when two or more partners are involved which is why I switched back to IAH-LIM. I will follow your recommendation of looking at AA website first. I might have to come back to you for more help. It has been over 15 years since I active search for AA awards. Using BA miles will throw another dimension to the problem. Thanks again for your help.

Since you can easily get to DFW, I would use DFW as starting city to search for AA award on AA's own site.

Remember AA now is on One-Way award chart. Also remember BA also offers One-Way. You can structure your award with much more flexibility using One-Way search. Many folks make the mistake of setting their mind on a r/t search and get themselves really frustrated. Even in the old days when AA award was r/t only, I found one-way search often unearth availability that the city pair had, but would be filtered out by computer if doing a r/t. I ALWAYS do one-way search on any kind of award chart I use because of this.

I don't think you'll have trouble with that. I did a few test searches on aa.com and ba.com and found surprisingly good availability on MIA-LIM (eco and biz). IAH-MIA, on the other hand, was a bit more challenging; on many dates, aa.com spits out some pretty creative routings for this sector (involving RJs connecting in airports I've never heard of), which are seemingly too complex for ba's search engine to process. So, you might fare best by focusing on dates with lightly booked IAH-MIA flights.

let's say i want to go to S. America using BA miles from SEA on AA. When i do a search on BA it always gives me a mix of Y and C. Y for SEA-DFW and then C(business) from DFW onwards. Since most domestic flights are 2 class i cannot get First. Class for the domestic leg?

You get F on the 2-class AA metal if your ticket is booked in C, provided there is availability.

BA site is known for glitch for showing all the partner flights available, especially involved connections.

Try to do a simple One-Way search between the city pair of SEA-DFW on both BA and AA to see what may come up.

I am afraid for those who have to use connection flights on AA, booking via phone may be your only option to get what you want after you find there are availability on AA but not showing on BA.

Edit: not sure how BA treats partner award that involves segments that are served by 2-class plane. headinclouds has made a good point on this. You would need to call BA to find out the exact rules.

You may fly in F on a biz class intl award, but won't you pay the multipler for F for the entire trip? Front of the plane award trips to Hawaii are treated as F, so 3 not 2 is the multipler used for determining the number or miles needed.

I was talking in the context of the question the OP has, his itinerary is SEA-DFW to South America, to be booked in C - but BA only shows him Y for the SEA-DFW segment... In a slip, I was thinking in the AA award context...

However, you have made a good point - since this is a BA award, may be if there is no C class on a 2-class plane, BA award would automatically downgrade you to Y on that segment, very similar to how JL treats an AA award booked in C that involved Japan domestic segments which do not have C class - so all JL domestic segments would be downgraded to Y, despite the award is booked in C.

To avoid such, if one departs from, say SFO or MIA, picks the 3-class flight to get C cabin. Unfortunately SEA-DFW is served by 2-class flights only.