STO-NYC oneworld award. Really this difficult?
 

Hi,

I've been collecting miles and points for a while, but have yet to spend on any big awards. So, now I want to go STO-NYC for 3-4 days including September 21, and I'm shocked to find almost nothing useful. Before I go out and buy tickets, I thought I'd turn to the vast knowledge of this forum.

Ideally I would arrive in NYC on 20 Sep am and leave on 23 Sep evening, but there's some flexibility. I would prefer Business, especially inbound, but I could do Economy.

I have a lot of Amex points that I could transfer to oneworld (BA, Finnair or Iberia). I have searched BA - no useful availability. I am assuming that this is showing partner airlines as well? Finnair won't show availability unless I already have enough miles in their program, and I'm not yet enrolled in IB.

I could use miles for one or more segments and pay for the rest. I could pay for Economy and upgrade with miles. But I'll be damned if I can't use miles for anything. One thing I could do is to pay the whole thing with MR points, but this is an expensive use of points.

So please, what are my options? Is it really this difficult? Am I too late? Too early? Should I enroll in parter programs to which I can't transfer points? Any pointers in the right direction much appreciated.

You have lots of options!
However, it does take a bit of work to find them. The BA site does show some availability for your dates, but only using the ARN-LCY flights which is very early in the morning (outbound) and involves a change of airport (LCY-LHR). Ba.com will only show partner flights if BA has no availability at all.

A more useful site is qantas.com (though you need to create a user profile, which is free). Currently showing many options for your preferred dates in Economy including via Berlin, Helsinki and LCY/LHR. Fewer options in Business, but more options in Business if you change dates to Sep 19-24.

Happy Travels.

Note award seats generally get loaded 330/365 days out (depending on the airline) and get snapped up pretty quickly.

You are far better calling up BA and speaking with an operator who can see all oneworld availability, unfortunately none of the airlines present it in entireity (QF does it best at present)

I primarily use my AA miles for same-day or next-day mileage tickets and a lot of it has involved ARN-LHR. Most of the time I have had no problem getting seats on the BA ARN-LHR flights and this is one of my most frequented routes, dozens of times a year for years now. Even a few weeks before the flight is often pretty good. It's AA on LHR-JFK that has increasingly been the problem.

Thank you NDFan, moa999 and GUWonder,

This is really helpful.

I have now joined Iberia and Quantas. I also called Finnair to explore my options. The thing is ~€400 surcharges, which pretty much kills the deal for me. For that I can just about get to NYC and back in Economy without using miles*. I wish I knew six months ago that I should plan 11 months in advance. Next time I come prepared.

* A paid ticket is around €500, and gets me miles plus MR points the equivalent of ~€60 in MR points paid toward a ticket.