You would be much better off to ask the questions related to award availability and fee involved, in the related program forum rather than a blanket question here.

Each forum of the correctpondent programs would have readers who have more insight to that program to provide you better advice in relationship to the particular award you have in mind.

As for the mileage requirement that you can easily look up on each program's chart. The difference is not that much, about 10K to 15K, so not a biggie. I wouldn't worry about this as finding award seats is far more important than the cost of miles - because no availability, no award, even it is a "cheapest" mileage, it would be of no use!

What matters is the program rules, availability and fees. Program rules again you can find it on each airline's website - such as specific routing, any limit to partner, whether stopover is allowed... each program is different and you have 5 or 6 programs here. No one could give you a generic total picture.

Among OneWorld members, BA is your worst bet for cash outlay due to the high fuel surcharge (YQ) - you are looking at $400+ r/t at least versus AA may cost you $100 or less. BA, AA and AS would all be using CX or possible JL depending on situations They are all One World.

UA/CO you have either UA or CO metal, as well as their partners such as NH and SQ.

Ditto for Aeroplan - because they are all Star A.

AC also charges high YQ on its own metal. Luckily it does not charge YQ on partner flights. So you would look for Star A partners for your trip if you use Aeroplan.

However, every program has its own rules, even UA and CO rules are still different until Next Year. I dont think I can emphasize enough that the starting point is to understand how each program works then decide which one would be the one you concentrate on... because a route is allowed on program A, may not be allowed on program B... In order to find award availability, routing is very important. For example, originating from LAX you would have a very hard time to find any F or even J seat on CX. I can tell you right now the whole November has NOTHING outbound LAX, nor SFO, nor even YVR. You have much better luck from ORD or YYZ. If you are using BA miles, the Single Partner award means you would need to pay your own way to the CX gateway if you cannot find award seat outbound from LAX... So if you find seats from YVR, you would need to pay your own way LAX-YVR, or wherever CX departs and award seats are available on your date(s)...

Again, you need to ask your questions in each airline's own forum for that particular program then make your own analysis. Else you would be just getting incomplete info.

BA has 4 different award chart. The mileage requirements are all different. BA only, BA + one partner, Single Partner, 2+ partners.

BA charges YQ on ALL redemption except AA domestic, as well as South America (whether it is on AA or LA).

Pretty much everything else, you are charge high YQs.

If you're coming from north america, look at Air Canada. You can use Amex points on AC.

Why bother posting a reply like this?

I think you should worry less about cost of miles and more about ease to using miles.

For Hong Kong someone once told me that it is easier to book through SFO than LAX (I am in LAX and fly to Hong Kong once a year) since LAX is a busy route.

The other locations I do not know anything about.

Instead of using AA program have you consider using asia miles program. I credit my AA flights to asia miles just for the ease of use on cx.

Check out Air Canada with CO/UA miles.

Not sure if this will work from LAX, but I just used CO OnePass reward ticket to purchase Executive First from LGA-YZZ-PVG, then TPE-NRT (this leg on ANA), then NRT-YZZ-LGA. All for 125,000 miles.

At least these Air Canada routes have 2 cabin classes: Economy and Executive First (lie-flat beds). For me coming from NYC it requires the stop-over in Toronto, but I think it's worth it.

Might also check out Korean Air because I know some of their routes also have only 2 cabins, allowing for lie-flat beds for business-class mile spend.

Good luck.

I spent a bunch of time this weekend booking my dad in first to shanghai via hong kong from north America. I have the same frequent flier plans as you, and he is booked in November and December.

I agree with the fellow commenters when they say that the lowest miles to Asia isn't the key question (the answer by the way is US Air miles program 120k miles to Asia). The key is availability.

I had lots of difficulty finding star alliance availability during the dates my dad wanted. I searched first class availability from the major gateways: ORD, JFK, LAX, YYZ, LAX. we also have a nonstop from our hometown to FRA so I checked connections via FRA too. Unfortunately nothing worked. I noticed during this search that LAX availability was in general worse than others.

I actually find surprisingly adequate availability on delta from DTW to shanghai. If you have sky pesos you might look into that. I am not sure of connection availability to your HKG destination but it is only a 2:30 flight.

The best availability I found was on one world. AA had availability out of ORD to shanghai. More importantly there was reasonable availability for cathay pacific flights out of ORD and JFK to hong kong. HKG is cathay's hub so that is the carrier I would focus on. I did not see LAX availability to HKG but maybe you'll have better luck.

The CX flight cost 135k AA miles for first class plus $36 tax and $25 in booking fees. It would have been 150k if I had used BA miles. I am not sure what the taxes would have been under BA but I think they do charge surcharges now for Asia redemptions.

To clarify, the delta availability that I found was in business. The rest of the routes were in first.

Were you not able to find anything using AC, NH, SQ or TG? I know it would mean some creative routing especially your need is to PVG. I believe AC flies YYZ-PVG, and CO/UA miles can book that.

ORD-HKG is CX new route starting Sept 1. It was wide open on both J and F when I looked a month ago for November travel. JFK has not had much availability, but YYZ has some. If you ask for JFK departure, it actually routes through YYZ - i.e. AA JFK to YYZ, then CX YYZ-HKG. This would / should change as it comes much closer to departure time. CX is very good at opening up award seats when it sees there are empty seats going out.

LAX is hopeless but YVR did have some availability on the flight that arrives HKG at night. The other flight has no availability every day in whole November at the time I checked.

You can use either AA or BA miles for CX flights - problem is with BA miles, unless you are already at the CX gateway - otherwise you would need to pay your own way to get to the CX gateway for the outbound. Same for inbound you would need to pay your own way from CX arrival to your home airport.

BA would cost about $400 roughly from East Coast, and slightly cheaper from ORD and West Coast.

Currently I am holding a November ticket outbound in J from ORD and inbound in F, to YYZ, originating city is MIA. The tax is $80.50 with $59 of it due to the expensive taxes and fees at YYZ where we want to have a few days stopover to visit relatives.
But have you tried AC to NRT, then NH to PVG?

There is one more exception.Royal Jordanian airways, where you are not charged fuel surcharge by BA

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

I recently did a test booking on ba.com for a one-way Coach ticket JFK-AMM-AQJ on RJ, and there were fuel charges assessed (in the range of ~ $150, if I recall correctly).

I would go with Alaska Air. Their redemption on CX F is 140K round trip. I know AA is way higher, around 185K, for the same trip.

^

+1. The redemption on CX F to Africa/Middle East/India is also 140K round trip. So you essentially get HKG-Africa/Middle East/India in F for free.