I agree - Avios can be useful under certain (limited) circumstances for short & direct flights - both US domestic (when $ price is high) and world-wide (Europe/Asia).
For example, I am looking for BGO-LHR award which is 4.5K Avios vs 10K AA miles.
Forget Avios for long haul international premium flights, especially if you don't live in a OW hub :td:

so forget BA thru AA or the avios if i want to book flight to india or nepal due to fuel surcharges?

Long haul prices to India are highly inflated, and you'll pay fuel surcharges flying on BA.

If you choose to route on CX, you'll still pay very high prices in terms of miles, not so much in terms of fuel surcharges. It's a bit of a tradeoff.

how do you guys book U.S. domestic economy flights on BA.com? I just tried multiple airports but I don't get anything available in the results. am I doing something wrong???

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

After logging into your BAEC account, are you including "partners" in your search, after being told that BA does not fly the route?

Have you found "MileSAAver" award availability on aa.com for your desired trip? Only MileSAAver award seats can be secured with Avios. And ba.com sometimes has difficulty correctly displaying AA award-seat availability, especially if a connection is required. For what itinerary are you looking?

Ironically, if one lives near an AA hub, BA Avios are quite valuable for continental U.S. flights and stretch much further for many RT flights than AAdvantage miles. It gets dicey for non-hub airports, and I personally would find AA to be of better value. Since I live near several small, non-AA hub airports, yet within 4-5 hours of an AA hub, it's pretty much a tossup for me in terms of value.

I think the most valuable combination is to hold a mix of UA and BA. Diversified across two alliances, with the BA focused mostly on short-haul and the UA focused mostly on long-haul/premium cabin.

Could swap another *A carrier for UA I suppose. But even though UA is getting beat up for crappy merger handling, I like the fact that I can easily look up and book one-way partner awards on United.com. The alliance is so dang big that I've had success recently booking desired awards, even for peak summer trips where AA and US (booked directly as an R/T fully on their metal) had nothing.

I think you have to seach individual segments, you can't search an entire trip (i.e. if you want to fly BOS to SLC, you would search BOS-ORD and ORD-SLC separately).

EDIT: Never mind, apparently I'm wrong on this.

What you said used to be correct. At the switchover to Avios and for several months thereafter, you had to look at legs separately.

If someone can find me a route on BA, I Will give them an incentive. Pm me.

I want to go from EWR or PHL to LAX (or somewehre in socal) on June 4th or 5th ONe way.

I cant seem to find any. I am looking for J seating. Thank you.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

There is no J seating offered from EWR or PHL to California on AA or AS; only F or Y.

(There may be one or two AA flights from MIA to LAX on AA that offer three-class service, but your flight down to MIA would be in F or Y. There's also three-class service on AA's JFK-LAX flights.)

Just go to aa.com, and do a series of searches for MileSAAver award flights from EWR/PHL to LAX/SNA/SAN. Include flights on AS in your award search. If no MileSAAver award seats come up, you're out of luck.

get free lounge access with biz class ticket?
 

I just checked a round trip flight to delhi and saw a one way 60k business class saver mile and $100 fee or tax.

if i redeem united miles for United BusinessFirst ticket, do i get free lounge access and free checked bags? it is complimentry ? i checked the terms and it says Premier Access check-in, baggage handling, boarding, deplaning and security lanes (where available)
Access to United Arrivals Lounge in select locations, offering showers, breakfast and business services
Access to United ClubSM and Star Alliance® member lounges

Yes to all your questions. Where available.

I've concluded at this point that you are messing with us.

How many different ways to ask the same question?

Sometimes, you can book a flight on BA using fewer AA miles than it would cost you in Avios. No matter how badly you wish it were otherwise, there's nothing you can do about it. The end. There is no way to reduce the number of Avios it would cost just because you could book it for fewer AA miles. For example, to fly in F on BA from LHR to LAX will cost you 75,000 Avios. If you booked the same flight on AA.com using AA miles, it would cost you 62,500 miles if available. There is nothing you can do to make it only cost 62,500 Avios now matter how badly you wish it could be the case.

Sometimes (often in fact), you can book a flight on AA using fewer Avios than it would cost you in AA miles. For example, to book a flight from MIA to NAS on AA, it will cost you 4,500 Avios if available, but if you book it using AA miles it will cost you 17,500 miles. There is no to make it work out that you can get the same trip by only using 4,500 AA miles. Zero. You can't do it by paying $25 or by transferring something, or by praying to airplane gods.

Edit: Oops. I responded to a post you made on page 2 before I realized there were already 4 pages, saying the same thing I said. Sorry. I'd delete by my post took me a while to write, so I'm going to leave it. :0)