Cathay award: BA and AA
 

Looking to book a family trip to somewhere in East Asia (preferably BKK, NRT/HND, maybe SIN). From JFK to any of the 3 destinations listed before I got 110K BA miles and 13K AA (with 75K coming in) so technically 88K. I'm thinking two tix on each airline, 100K from British and 130K from AA (IK, i'll do another bonus :D). During spring break, April 2012. Any ideas?

may want to try and deposit $100k in fidelity using AA's offer to get you another 50k miles on AA.

I am traveling on CX and had to redeem one ticket on BA and one on AA for the same flight. I would recommend reserving the first ticket with AA first, then calling BA to book the second. BA won't let you hold tickets, so sometimes it is a bit challenging to coordinate. Also, BA and AA don't always have the same availability.

I recently booked a trip on CX for Feb 2012 using both AA and BA miles

1) JFK -> HKG (multi day stopover) -> BKK, using BA miles
2) HKT (Phuket, I'm flying one way BKK - HKT on a separate ticket) -> HKG -> JFK -> DCA, using AA miles

Some recommendations and conisderations:

1) Consider booking one way, not roundtrip tickets on BA, since if you book a RT, the entire itineary cannot be changed or cancelled once it is less than 24 hours before the first flight
2) If you want to vist two destinations, you can include a stopover for free when you use BA miles (see comments above) but you cannnot have a stopover in Asia if using AA miles
3) BA mileage requirements for the "one partner" award are only 25K one way (for economy) to any of the destinations you are considering, while AA awards are 35K one way to most of Asia, except NRT which has a reduced mileage (25K mi) off peak award from October to April
4) BA will charge you for the fuel surcharge (YQ) on the ticket while AA won't

Hope this helps!

Your tips for using AA vs. BA miles for a CX award are super helpful - I'm considering doing a similar CX trip to the OP's and I have a choice of using either AA or BA miles. Thanks!

One question: did you have any trouble with AA agents seeing CX availability? Or did you get everything booked on the first try? Also, which class did you book? Thanks again!

This would also help me with a similar trip I'm planning. Would like to go to Bangkok, then to Vietnam and then stop in Hong Kong for a few days on the way home to Chicago.

Does BA allow one way awards?

Could i do the following:
Use 67.5K AA miles....ORD to BKK on Cathay Pacific 1st class (after Sept 1st) f

Use 75K BA miles on Cathay Pacific 1st class.....SGN to HKG..stop over for several days..... HKG to ORD

Would buy a ticket from BKK to SGN

Will this work?
Thanks

I did not have any trouble getting AA agents to find the same flights I had found on my own searches, but you raised a good point. Given that I'm new pretty new to this and didn't use paid services (e.g., Exper Flyer) checking CX availability was pretty time consuming and challenging. I started trying to gage BA/AA award availability based on AsiaMiles FF availability, but that was turning up seats that apparently only were available to people using CX (AsiaMiles) awards. Ultimately, I ended up using a combination of the BA and Qantas websites to search for award flights. BA searches only worked for me on segments where BA did not operate its own flights, and QF did not work for all segments either. Between the two though, I was able to find flights that both BA and AA agents could book for me.

I booked economy on the trip from the US, and business on the trip home.

Yes. BA offers One-Way award. In fact it is advisable to book One-Way award on BA because its very restrictive date change rule. See the post just 2 posts above yours.

Your routing would work, just keep in mind intra-Asia may not have F cabin or even if you book F on a 3-class flight, CX often swap aircrafts in its regional flights and you may wound up still in business. Short flights so it really does not matter whether sitting in F or J.

Kind of in a similar situation. Planning a trip to BKK this January.

I can spend either 130k points for 2 tickets in CX F to BKK via HKG, or right now transfer 100k points through Membership Rewards to BAEC (taking advantage of the transfer bonus) and book the same route except have the option of stopping over. I am not sure if we will want to stop over or not but I guess it would be nice to have the option. However this would also mean we need to get to the CX gateway ourselves. I suppose a drive up to LAX from SAN might not be too bad, though CX F from LAX doesn't seem too open to awards.

General AA question
 

Does AA allow to mix partners? Like can I fly DCA to JFK on AA and then to HKG on CX and then CX to BOM?

- naroowal

Listed below are my personal observations:

AA benefits:
Low to non existent (fuel) surcharges. I've booked one way trans pacific flights for $22.50, $20.00 of it being an agent booking fee.

Allows for multiple carriers with the same miles. I've done a mix of JAL/CX with domestic airlines.

Lower point requirement for first class flight. 135,000 vs. 150,000 using BA miles.

BA benefits:
Bookable online, hence no agent booking fee.

Lower point requirement for economy class (50,000 vs. 75,000) and business class redemption(s) (100,000 vs. 110,000).

Lower cancellation fee, $50 vs. >$100 on AA.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

AA will let you use more than one carrier on an All-Partner award, but AA will not let you fly from North America to India via Asia, so you cannot use CX on such a redemption.

I am flying SFO-HKG-SIN-CMB on CX with AA miles. It is interesting that Sri Lanka is a different zone (Asia 2) from India and Maldives - fortunately for me.

finding seat availability to BKK in April may be difficult due to the Songkran (Thai New Year) holidays.

Keep in mind that AA requires more miles for an award with a stopover of more than 24 hours. I believe for a economy tickets to Asia it would increase the mileage by an additional 15k miles. BA allows free stopovers.

Thanks! Yeah, I've got KVS (and have also learned my way around the QF/BA websites), so I'm sure I'll have to go through the same thing as you diligently looking for open space on the CX flights. Is it me or has the BA site gotten progressively worse over the last few months? It's constantly having "connection" issues when I'm searching for partner award space.

Yes.

You would find a wealth of info on AA in the STICKY FAQ in AA forum.

Spend some time reading the FAQ STICKY which have links to different areas that would certainly interest you (and in the need to know) if you plan to book an AA award.

You would need 2 awards in your route because AA does not allow India via Pacific. So you would need a 2nd award from Asia 2 to India - and costs you much more miles to go via HKG but it would allow you to have a stopover in HKG. Pros and Cons.

And flying from Sri Lanka to Maldives on pay ticket is not expensive.

Some find it being a better way to go to Maldives on AA or even BA miles by using a combo of award and pay ticket from Asia.

BA site is broken far more often than it is actually working. The sad thing is BA seems oblivious to that and has no intention to fix it. There are lots of complaints in BA forum about the broken website for months already.

Yeah, and it's a bit shady too - because it never breaks connection when you're searching for BA-metal awards. Whenever you go to the Partner Award search area it constantly fails; it's almost as if they are purposely keeping it broken so that people stick to redeeming on BA-metal to pay those exorbitant fees (if people want to book awards online).

I have the same feeling as well. Otherwise, hard to explain why a big airline's website can be broken for so long, and only broken in the area where people try to redeem for partner's flights! Even the folks in the BA forum who normally would defend BA no matter what, are griping about it.

Maybe they finally listened (or gave in).
It worked just now the way it used to on 3 consecutive searches for partners.
Let's hope they have fixed it.

Does BA allow stopovers when traveling on awards using partners such as CX?

I came across this FAQ on the BA web site.

Can I stop over when travelling on a partner airline?
No, stopovers are only offered on routes operated completely by BA.

This makes me think that stop overs are not allowed. Can anyone point me to a BA rules/regs that says it's OK?

I'm thinking of transferring alot of Sapphire and Amex points to BA to take advantage of that stop over feature while flying to BKK on CX via a stopover in HKG. Otherwise, I may just transfer them all to my primary carrier, UA.
Thanks!

BA does allow stopovers on AA metal. I am one day in Chicago on the way to Kona. The stopover is over 30 hours so I believe you can. Not sure about CX.

I just booked an award on CX with BA miles and they definitely allowed a 3 day stopover in HKG with no additional mileage requirement.

If you want to get informed about BA awards...start here and work your way through the posts.

I am planning a trip next year going JFK-HKG and back going with Cathay Pacific. I don't know the dates yet other than sometime in the spring. With AA, I would use up 135k and little fees. With BA, I would use up 150k+fees, but revaluation of BA points might be coming.

Questions:
1) With enough points on either AA or BA to go on F, would using BA miles now be a much better choice since BA partner redemptions requirements are going up?

2) Also, if I book with BA or AA on Cathay now, can I change them later? Am I supposed to be looking at the BA, AA change fee schedule or Cathay's as well?

3) Can I book a BA flight using AA miles, assuming AA does fly to that location? For example, PHL-FCO. Both BA and AA do go there.

#1 - If you're worried about the value of BA miles dropping, may be better to use them. I'd still weigh that against the fees they tack on.

#2 - probably best to ask in the BA forums since you're specifically talking about BA redemptions.

#3 - Yes, you can use AA miles to book on either BA or AA. When booking, just tell the agent which flights you want and on which carriers. Just realize that transatlantic segments on BA booked with AA miles will still result in the BA fees being added on for that segment.

Just returned from a OW BKK-SFO CX 1st class using AA miles.
Absolutely worth every mile spent

I hope this helps.

I don't think this is accurate.

Unless things have changed in Dec 2010 I had booked a CX SFO HKG BOM award (one way business class for 67.5K miles). Ended up cancelling it and flying through LHR on BA for fewer miles.

I think guv1976 is right and you just got "lucky". Travel to India from NA for AA miles has to go via Atlantic. Sri Lanka is an exception as it is in Asia 2 rather than Indian subcontinent.
SFO-LHR-BOM in J for less than 67.5? It should be 90K BA miles On BA (or 67.5K with very high copay); or was it on CX?

The mileage cost is correct but the routing used to be only via Europe.

67.5K for J, 90K for F

http://www.aa.com/i18n/disclaimers/a...rtnerChart.jsp

BTW, all the little quirky rules used to be listed on AA website are now all disappeared after they upgraded the website. Although some said they can still be found on the Spanish version of AA.com. I in particular miss the co-terminal table used to be there for OneWorld award now cannot be found any more.

I think routing to India is still via Europe only (according to the AA chart you posted).
I was just wondering how was rj123456 able to book a J to BOM via LHR for under 67.5K miles?
See his post #31 above.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Had you actually ticketed the SFO-HKG-BOM award using AA miles, or merely placed it on hold before you canceled it? There are occasions when AA agents will mistakenly "book" a prohibited award itinerary, but when it comes time to ticket it, the desk that reviews international awards will nix it.

There are two (related) reasons why such an award should be rejected by AA: as the All-Partner award chart makes clear, awards from North America to the Middle East/India zone may only route via the Atlantic; and one-way awards from one zone to another may not involve a transit via a third zone, with some exceptions. One exception is that you may transit Europe on an award between North America and India. But there is no exception allowing a transit via Asia on a one-way from North America to India (nor could there be, since a routing via the Pacific is prohibited anyway).

Unless there has been a major change in AA's award rules, SFO-HKG-BOM should not be allowed on an AA All-Partner award.

You are absolutely right! The first rule on the side bar is for the little asterisk - Transatlantic Only - that governs the South America, Indian Subcontinent / Middle East, and of course Europe.