OK, I talked my buddy into signing up for the deal. I'm trying to help him figure out how best to use his miles. But I'm fairly new to BAEC myself.

He is BOS based and wants to go to Europe with his wife. Avoiding / reducing YQ would be great.

So, no AA across the pond makes this really hard. Iberia has a non-stop from BOS, but they do charge YQ. Any flight on BA is going to incur big YQ.

He's not a FFer at all, and thus talking him into going to a better destination might be tough.

Any thoughts?

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Any YQ on Aer Lingus?

A round-trip Economy seat from Boston to Geneva next October (for example) --- with a free stopover in London --- incurs a YQ charge of only $294 per ticket.

And CW seats for the same trip only adds $30 per ticket.

That doesn't seem unreasonable, to me. In my view, taking second choice on your preferred destination in order to avoid YQ charges is somewhat short-sighted. And you're talking to a real cheapskate (me)!

$300 for an award is not a good deal. Buying a revenue ticket would only be 2-2.5x as much most likely, and you would earn the miles. OK, no stopover, sure, but it's the opportunity cost of not earning miles that totally kills the deal.

If you have a huge list of places where you want to go someday, you might as well go to #2 on the list on this deal, and save #1 for a different opportunity. At least that's my view.

While this question came from a traveller based in Boston, the math is significantly different for folks flying to Europe from the west coast of the US. Based in Seattle, I pay the same YQ as folks in Boston, but a revenue ticket would be significantly more expensive. When you add the fact that BA has the only nonstop SEA-LHR, those reward flights are a lot more attractive. Flyers from some other western-US cities are in similar situations (Phoenix comes to mind).

As always, to each his own......

Does BA charge a fuel surcharge on award redemption for CX F USA-HKG? AA does not.

I did research Iberia and Finnair from orlando but too many stops and cost 60,000 instead of 50,000 to places I'd like to go less. I'm assuming I couldn't fly Aer Lingus across the Atlantic either?

I think I will look into South America a little further (I've been to Hawaii and I'd rather see someplace new for such a long flight)--the SA availability is pretty spotty but maybe... Thanks for the tip.

Are you sure about that? Since you are in JAX and MIA is AA's main hub for SA, I'd think you're in a pretty good position.

Yes, but nothing scary. Someone posted about CX in the first page or two of this thread.

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I don't know what, if any, fuel surcharges are imposed by BA on an Aer Lingus TATL redemption, but I do not see why you could not redeem BAEC miles for an award ticket on Aer Lingus from MCO. I believe that you would have to call the BAEC customer service line to redeem on Aer Lingus, however.

Here is a table that lists a one-way economy flight ex-USA and the cost in miles and dollars. This is also a good clue as to which airlines charge a fuel fine when booking the RTW tickets.
AY Finair JFK-HEL 32.5K $2.50
AA American ORD-PVG 25K $2.50
BA British JFK-MAD 30K $127.00
CX Cathay Pac JFK-HKG 25K $47.00
IB Iberia JFK-MAD 30K $133.00
JL Japan Airline SFO-NRT 25K $75.00
LA LAN Chile JFK-SCL 20K $2.50
MX Mexicana JFK-MEX 17.5K $103.00
QF Qantas LAX-MEL 40K $94.00
RJ Royl Jordian JFK-AMM 40K $115.00
MA no long-haul flights, useless partner

MIA is a stop but there is also a stop in Madrid, and if I hadn't been there just 7 months ago I would take a trip there but looking to go elsewhere in Europe this time. Thx.

A very fair point. On my last BOS-LAX flight, the headwinds were so bad that the captain told us we could get to London faster!

I agree. I paid about $340 r/t ATL-ZRH in peak season (September 2009) on DL. Being ATL based I will surely use my BA for redemption to somewhere other than Europe.

It does but it is fairly reasonable.

CX F definitely beats AA F and AA only goes to NRT (or China, hopefully PEK is in the card in near future.)

AA and LA seem to be the only 2 OW member airlines that dont charge YQ on award flights per a poster who has done some research on this front. All others charge but one as bad as BA.