AA/AS/BA Quandry
 

I have a ticket on hold on AS, using AA miles. That ticket (first class) costs me 37.5k miles. I have it on hold because there were only 2 seats left and I wanted to make sure I didn't lose out. I'm on a tight schedule and that's about the only flight that works.

Here is my quandry. I could book that flight for 25k Avios, which is my preference. But will BA see "zero" availability because of the hold I have through AA? Is there any way around this?

Go to AS site and see if you can find the low level award still available.

AA and BA can only book low level award on AS flight. If there is no more low level award then yes, you are holding up the availability to block your BA booking.

Granted, this is not a sure method because AS may have better availability for its own members so you would need to ask this in AS forum.

FYI, using Avios, AS flights are coded as First, not Business. So it would be 3x the price for first, not 2x. Don't know of any BA award levels that 8,333 miles, so you're likely looking at a 12.5K route.

Ah, thanks amolkold. Using the "Avios calculator" I had put in "Business" but you're right, it's coded "First", and will cost me 37.5, same as AA. So I may as well just spend the AA and hang on to the Avios till later.

I'm curious. Is there still an effective way to do a quick switcheroo and spend down the Avios instead of the AA? I'd rather spend BA than AA, but maybe that's because I don't live around ORD or DFW et al!

Well one thing I realized is that my AS flight is in "first" class -- so it would cost me 12.5x3 = 37.5 Avios to make the trip, same as what AA wanted. I was thinking it would take 25k because I was thinking of it as "business" class. So there's not much of a savings there. Darn.