BA metal only for the companion certificate so you can't avoid the fees. Since pushing for the full 100K requires spending $20K, the $30K required for the companion cert is something to think about, even if only one of you goes for the $30K to earn one companion cert--although as I noted in an earlier post, the $30K must be in a calendar year, the $20K is triggered by the date of approval, so any spending done in 2012 won't count towards earning the cert, unless you can make $30K by 12/31/12!

My husband and I each had the Chase BA cards - I got mine in late 2009 and his in 2010. We earned a companion pass on my card in 2010 and then used his card exclusively last year to earn another companion pass. With my companion pass I took my mom to Paris and London in F for a once in a lifetime trip (for HER, because she'll probably never go back). I believe the surcharges at that time were around $650 per ticket.... they have gone up since then.

So now my husband's companion pass expires Oct. 7 2013 (two years from date of issue) and for a r/t ticket to London in F it would cost us $2,330.48. Then I look at AA, where for the same days, in F, it would be only $598.60 for the two of us. Yeah AA's F isn't nearly as nice as BA's F, but to save almost two grand I'd deal.

We are probably going to end up not using this companion certificate, which makes me sad, but I am not going to use it just to use it. I look at it as, we still got the 130,000 BA miles out of the spend even if we let the certificate "go to waste." If this was a once in a lifetime trip I'd use it and splurge, but we have been going to Europe almost every year in business or first class, so it's not that big of a loss.

I guess my point is, as long as you are comfortable with paying the fuel surcharges then go for it. Otherwise there are lots of other ways to get to Europe for "cheaper."

Now would I get the BA card just to get 100,000 Avios? Absolutely. Because they're like gold for domestic AA flights. Like sending my husband to Knoxville for a weekend to see a Tennessee football game with his buddies. Only 9000 Avios r/t but would have been almost a $300 ticket.

It's only $598 on AA in first round trip but how many miles is it? One of the benefits to the 2 4 1 is the fact that you only use the amount of miles for 1 person as well. That does have some monetary value on it itself. Wouldn't the cheapest R/T F ticket on AA be 100K miles... and that's if you get the Miles SAAver rate. If you value your miles at .01 the increased cost of 70K miles to use AA (100k R/T per person) that would be an extra $700...

Congrats on the wedding. Why wouldn't you put that spending on other cards (ink, citi AAs, united, etc) and go business class without paying fuel surcharges. In my opinion the BA card is ok but only if you've gone through the other options I mentioned. For 30k in spending you can have hundreds of thousands of airline/hotel points that cost next to nothing to use in most cases.

I agree completely. The BA card is best for short single leg flights. I also think it is great for anyone who has a direct flight option on LAN to South America.

You would be best to use this card for those uses, and start racking up points and miles elsewhere.

Sheldon
www.worldwanderlusting.com

The BA card is awesome, but mostly for short, expensive non-stops. For instance, I live in Montana and do lots of NW flying on Alaska and I can easily pull three cents a point value on plain-old coach flights.