thanks for that suggestion

PS. the cheapest tickets to Eastern Europe I'm finding so far are over $400, typically over $500 actually. I paid $220 NYC to Madrid, round trip.

is it better to call BA or use online ? Online tool sucks. It never shows any availability for my dates.

Because the traffic to Eastern Europe is far less than the traffic to Western Europe from US - hence the fares are much higher.

What you ought to explore is to fly to Western Europe then using LCCs to go to Eastern Europe - sure more flights involved but these are your options - either pay to have convenience (perceived only imo) or pay less but not much more inconvenient.

Train is an option as well.

I'm curious also if I were to fly France-USA on points prices are quoted in Euro's taxes seem to be excessive. Is British Airways the only option for mileage redemption or are there other One World options?

Malev
Iberia
Finnair
Aer Lingus

I recommend doing a bit of research (in addition to ba.com, use the website of the airline you are hoping to fly) on your own before calling. I called last week and was amazed at how much more info the reps get in their search results, but I wouldn't have been able to take full advantage of this resource if I hadn't done my homework first. Interestingly, I was able to reconstruct the routing they found for me on my own (PVG-HKG-JFK), but had to do so segment by segment.

if only we could FD award tickets...this whole thread would be a non-issue. :)

I do this type of award research all the time - using city pair and one-way search, even on aa.com I can unearth some options not shown if you just do the origin to destination search.

yeah if only they used priceline as their booking engine. :D

The only legacy airline that makes sense for intra-Europe is to accumulate your miles on BMI, which has one ways within Europe for 4.5K or 6K miles. Although it does have the ripoff YQ's, the net impact is not so bad. Those same milage levels also apply on partners. I have snagged partner tickets that would have cost over 500 euros on routes between eastern and western Europe for 6K BMI miles plus ~$90.

BMI's ff program beats the stuffings out of BA's.

can you book ORD-DEL non-stop in AA using BA miles?
 

I read most of this thread and i think it is not answered directly. I read that USA to Europe can only be booked in BA metal. But can USA-DEL direct flight be booked in AA to avoid heafty taxes of BA? Thanks

I believe it is the case that BA miles cannot be used for ANY transatlantic AA flights from the USA, no matter their destinations. (Edit) Oops, it appears from my reading of some of the earliest posts on this thread that I may be incorrect. Are there USA to transatlantic destinations for which it is allowable to use BA miles on AA?

No AA transatlantic flights. Flights US-India are considered transatlantic, and thus off-limits.

For those of you who are wondering..yes you can avoid BA flying transatlantic. I just pulled up JFK-HEL Nonstop on FinnAir(AY) Jan 28 returning 29th..(as a test). $2.50 taxes outbound $35.92 taxes inbound.

No. You cannot fly AA to India because it is TATL.