May I ask why you think AA miles value is less than UA? I have always found it easier to get seats on AA than UA/CO. AA used to better when the stop overs were allowed but the 1 way ticketing is pretty good.

BA took a nose dive after YQ started.

People's value varries tremendously. For instance, I fly a lot of short distance, high cost Alaska Airlines flights. For 9,000 BA points I can book a $400 AS round trip flight, that's a great deal.

Purely thinking transatlantically, in terms of UA vs AA

UA: travel on UA, US, CO, LH, SN, LX, AC, OS, TK, SK, LO, VS
AA: travel on AA, BA, AY, AB, IB, EY, TN

Now, using UA miles, you can mix and match partners at will, and most partners in that list (with the exception of US and LX, IME) have great award space. No fuel surcharges.

Using AA miles, you have the insane published fare rule (which significantly limits potential routings on AB/EY/TN). IB's product is horrible, and BA has insane fuel surcharges. This essentially leaves AY with bad award space, or AA's own metal (whose product isn't too flash anyway). Hmm...

As to the subject of ultra-short haul rewards, LAN is a lot better than BA in every regard- transfer from SPG at a 2:5 ratio with the shortest awards available for only 6000 LAN km's (2400 SPG points!). In my eyes, BA Avios points are more or less in the same category as Qantas Frequent Flyer points- worthless.

BA avios is not useless. Now from LAX to YVR, only 7500 Avios one way and to Maui, 12500 one way

Disregard, didn't see that my question was already answered.

Adding on to this...I've recently been hearing/seeing people post about "fuel surcharges" being tacked on for award flights - sometimes really big numbers ($700 and up). To me, that really devalues award flights, and I'd like to know which carriers do this, and get some notion of how large these fees might be for specific flights.

FWIW I've never paid a fuel surcharge (at least that I'm aware of) on any award flight, and I've taken more than a few. I'm used to various processing/ticketing fees + taxes, running up to about $100 per ticket on international flights. If I got dinged with a $700 "fuel surcharge" on top of that, I'd be pretty hacked off.

But back to the topic at hand...Does anyone know if there's a good chart showing which airlines impose fuel surcharges, and how much?

Thanks!

BA is by far the biggest offender, as is AA on BA metal. Another reason to completely avoid Oneworld internationally.