Which is better to ZRH - AA or BA?
 

We are flying to Zurich this summer using miles. We have a choice of flying MIA-JFK-ZRH on AA using 60,000 miles with assigned seating or on BA MIA-LHR-ZRH using 50,000 miles with seating only assigned 24 hours before the flight. Which do you think is better? I like the idea of conserving the AA miles so that I can use only 40,000 if we plan a fall trip to Europe but I hate the idea of having to wait until the last minute to get seats for a long flight.

Do you think connecting in JFK or LHR is better? Actually even with BA we will have to connect in JFK on the return.

Has anyone had any good or bad experiences with the new BA seating plan?

If you want your bags to arrive with you, I'd suggest taking the routing via JFK. I've heard too many horror stories about BA losing bags at LHR on connecting flights (I personally know 3 people this has happened to over the last few months).

Never mind your bags - getting yourself through Heathrow is definitely not my idea of fun. JFK is relatively painless.

For my money (miles), I would go with AA in this case, especially if where you sit is important to you. BTW, JFK-ZRH-JFK is on a 767 - even if you couldn't get seats in advance you have a much better chance of scoring a window or an aisle or even both than you would on the BA 747s operating LHR-MIA-LHR. For the reasons why, just look at the respective seatmaps.

You could get your posts up to the minimum required for coupon connection and try to trade for *A miles. Then you can take the MIA-ZRH non-stop and be in ZRH in 9 and a half hours.

Or you could wait until there's a cheap WT+ ticket MIA-LHR-ZRH on BA and upgrade that to NCW for 25k roundtrip. Right now that's looking expensive, but sub-$1000 WT+ fares are not unheard of.

The minimum is 90 posts - shouldn't be all that hard. Getting the necessary *A miles (and seats!) could be more difficult though, especially since ZRH-MIA is a very popular sector for Swiss frequent flyers looking to use their miles.

So the three options are:

1) Peak travel w/AA miles = 60k
2) Use BA miles = 50k
3) Off-peak w/AA miles = 40k

If you don't want to go the CC route and trade for *A miles, I recommend the off-peak AA route. You can transfer in the US (DFW or JFK), get advance seat assignments, and use fewer miles. Plus, you don't need to wait until the fall; you can get the off-peak award through May 15. Early May in ZRH should be nice.

Or, each traveler could get both USAir credit cards. That would give everyone 35k US miles. The remaining 15k you'd need for a 50k award to ZRH shouldn't be hard to get, and then you could try your luck on the non-stop MIA-ZRH flight. Since you are so flexible with your dates (I'm guessing this is true since you can fly in the summer of the fall), you shouldn't have much trouble finding dates that the non-stop is available for an award ticket.

Very good idea about getting enough posts for the coupon connection. Thanks for pointing it out. I will definitely do that right away.

We are Swiss nationals and go to Switzerland often. Yes, we have taken the direct MIA-ZRH route several times and it is wonderful. We have both used the USAir credit card route to get mileage towards our next direct flight. But what is the 35,000 miles you speak of? We only received 15,000.

No, the choices were only for the summer. We are definitely going for 3 weeks from late June to mid July. The spring or fall trip would be an additional one probably to somewhere else in Europe. (It's great to be retired!)

You get 20k US miles with the Bank of America credit card; 15k for the Juniper one. So get both and get 35k. Plus, you can get a few of the Bank of America ones and get 20k each time for whatever the annual fee is (I think $95).

Regarding the BA option, you should be able to get decent seats if you check in online 24 hours in advance.

Now knowing that you want to travel late June to mid July, I recommend that you at least get back-up tickets ASAP. You can always cancel them and pay the redeposit fee (probably $100) if something better pops up. There's lots of mid-week availability using BA miles on BA metal right now, but I couldn't find any AA availability using AA metal. Taxes through LHR are really high though, about $270/ticket. Upgrading a WT+ ticket to NCW is looking better and better.

Thanks so much for the info about Bank of America credit cards for USAir points. We will get right on that.

We fortunatley had been holdilng the AA flights but couldn't extend the hold as nothing was available any longer. So we made our decision for this trip and booked with AA. We got very good seats.

I'm glad to hear (for future travel) that BA seating should not be a problem even with only 24 hours notice. We were very concerned about spending 8+ hours right next to the lavatory or in two middle seats or in seats that don't recline. I had no idea that the fees going through Healthrow are so high. Is that true even if the trip ends in Heathrow or is it only when you are connecting?

As suggested, I put a few more posts on to reach the 90 mark but the Coupon Connection has not opened for me. What do I need to do?

Try logging out, and then logging back on.

Tom in the BA F lounge at LGW grazing this afternoon

I logged out and logged back in. No coupon connection.

I'd give it 24 hours then and try again. Maybe the servers have not recognized your 90th post yet. If that doesn't work, post in Technical Issues forum. Confirm you logged back in and had to type your user name and password again (and not just shut down the browser and opened it again)?

Yes, I completely logged out and had to input my user name and password again. I will give it 24 hours as you suggest.