lumisura

Thanks, that's what I feared. I called the BA number in the US and they were "busy" and then they were closed for the day, will call them again tomorrow.

DownUnderFlyer

This might just be two phone calls and you are done with it. Please report back how it goes. Also how much more $$$ you have to pay for the flights booked with BA Avios rather than AA miles

lumisura

I will report back for sure, thanks! Hopefully I will be able to book them tomorrow.

lumisura

So I finally reached BA after calling and getting a message they were all "busy" for a couple of days. I wasn't able to book anything because the BA person doesn't see the availability that is shown on AA. He said AA doesn't really all the seats they have to BA so while I see many flights available on AA, he is seeing zero availability on his side. Great. So he suggested I call AA and "scream" at them to release the seats to BA otherwise I won't be able to book anything. I had no idea it was so difficult to use miles across the partners like this, ugh!

DownUnderFlyer

Yes, this is not uncommon. Usually between BA and AA it should be fairly similar but you can get things like that once in a while.

zeroecho

Hi all,

I've been browsing the forums for a while (only joined yesterday to post) and it seems like a great community for FF - I work in software development and used to acronyms for everything yet am amazed at the volume of acronyms used here! (I've printed the crib sheet off to try help me decipher all replies )

I get to fly occasionally (say once or maybe twice a year with work and once or twice a year leisure, though usually multiple flights are involved in my trips) with work this usually involves going to the states (I'm in the UK) on AA, so I opened up a FF account with them and then signed up for the MBNA amex and was spending on that as my primary shop/petrol CC for extra points until they did the recent promotions on Avios with Lloyds TSB & Tesco so I've switched to that now and have been doing about 50/50 split over the last few years (using my Tesco reward to get points for what was airmiles.co.uk and then spending on my AAdvantage CC to get points there)

That's the introduction over, the real question I need help with is:

I'm saving up to go for a 3 week trip to Japan in Sept/Oct 2013 and currently my thoughts are going

LHR > HND (BA) > HIJ (JAL) > JR back to TKO and then HND/NRT > LHR

I've got 30k of Avios with BA and 32k with AA (both basic level, missed out on going gold last year with AA) - can these be combined to cover the entire cost of the trip via OneWorld (I find their website rubbish) it appears that if I want to spend my AA I'm going to need to ring AA to do it which I don't mind, just want to get most benefit whereas the BA website seems fairly good to spend my Avios without the need for human interaction.

I would be paying for my flight to TKO anyway and have a good time to save up (help on which scheme works out most beneficial to invest into for this trip would be appreciated) and would like to try go WT+/Business if possible (I can't afford First )as I'm 6"3, economy = knee pain, which for a 12 hour flight to the other side of the world I would prefer to avoid. I'm wondering if buying WT+ and doing a MFU would be the best way to use my points?

I've seen this offer http://www.americanexpress.com/uk/br...CPID=100031185 which would help with my girlfriend also coming on this trip too with the companion ticket (she does not have AA only an Avios account with about 15k, we might make a household account at some point) but I am waiting for the current Avios Lloyds TSB offer to end and some large spends (car insurance etc.) to kick in to take full advantage of hitting the target spends to try get the companion ticket.

I wasn't sure if this should go into the AA or BA forums as it's combining both for a trip to a single destination and I hoped being a newbie that I wouldn't get shouted at for posting in here

Any help or advice would be much appreciated

DownUnderFlyer

Welcome to FT, zeroecho! I wish I had zero echo when using Skype, something you might be able to fix for me.

Unfortunately your BA and AA miles will be totally separate and there is no way to combine them. Unless you have a really good reason it is usually a bad idea to have more than one frequent flyer program within one alliance. You should really put your eggs into one basket.
Oneworld and their website don't allow you to book redemption flights there, you will always have to go through the airlines.

MilesAmateur

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

After researching for days, waiting over the phone for hours and trying to understand how to find our best deal to Europe, we have a big hope that you guys can help us!

My friend and me are flying for our first time to europe. We want to fly from Miami latest April for 2 weeks.

We would like to fly to either London take trains and buses down to Rome and then fly back to Miami; or Fly to Rome and take trains and buses up to London and fly back to Miami.

We dont have a clue of which option is better, how to get the most out of our few but well worked and gained miles!? and have a great experience!

I am AA Gold (not for long) and have around 100K and my friend has around 90K.

Please any suggestion is going to be greatly appreciated!!

Thank you!

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

All other things being equal, I think you will have lower out-of-pocket costs by flying into LHR, and out from FCO.

zeroecho

Thanks DownUnderFlyer do you happen to know which would be best value per location? E.g. I can use up my AA and then carry on purely into avios or similarly if BA don't work out as the best value for their upgrades/reward flights then I will stop spending on their plastic and put into AA too.

If I fly AA, i can still get the points into my BA account can't I? As I am likely to go AA more this year.

I did look at doing a MFU for a LHR > HND flight and it was in excess if £1500 just to get to WT+ whilst cashing in 30k in Avios which feels a bit of a rip off to me as i am sure it's only about 1600£ for a WT+ for the same flight - are there any free tools which help make my miles go further and reduce the need to spend loads of real cash without much benefit?

Many thanks for your help. Regarding zero echo you can usually avoid that on Skype by using a headset instead of speakers ;-)

BrewerSEA

In my opinion your best value would be a oneworld award in business. To book this you must call AA.

If you can keep it under 10,000 miles flown this only costs 90k miles per person. One possible routing would be MIA-LHR//FCO-MAD-MIA. You must fly two non-AA oneworld airlines so would have to fly BA MIA-LHR (MIA-BOS/BWI/IAD/NAS/PHL/YUL or MIA-MCO-LGW would be other options if there isn't award availability on MIA-LHR) which will cost you an extra $390 per person in fuel surcharges (worth it in my opinion for BA's superior seat). Iberia flies FCO-MAD and along with AA flys MAD-MIA (you could fly either but I'd prefer Iberia). You could stop over in Madrid for no additional miles.

For 100k miles per person you could fly this as AA partner awards in J which would allow more generous routing but no stopovers other than at your North American gateway. This would allow you to fly AA TATL in one or both directions saving that $390 fuel surcharge.

You may have difficulty finding award availability this late in the game especially if restricted to the first option, but I'd look there first (BA availability tends to be better than AA anyway).

DownUnderFlyer

You can get AA points on any flight operated by a oneworld carrier as long as you have the right booking classes (there is a bit more fineprint but that is essentially what it is).
BA and Avios have the big disadvantage of needing lots of cash as you are paying the fuel fines. With AA you don't usually have that unless it is a flight operated by BA.

divmember

Hi. I've been checking for CX first class availability from JFK to HKG for late December 2012/January 2013(waiting for trip dates to actually book). Up until yesterday there were 2 seats on each of the 4/5 daily flights on both the BA and Qantas sites. Today I can't even get the flights to show up never mind show award availability. Any thoughts on what's going on? Thanks for your input.

pandaperth

The CX IT system is down for a major change this weekend
I believe the airline is swapping from one global system to another

divmember

Thanks so much! If that's the case then it will be a big relief!