Need some advice (RBC AVİON > OneWorld)
 

Hi everyone 👋

I currently have 200,000 Rbc Avion points

currently there is a 30% bonus to British airways avios.

I also have the option to convert to AA (200k Avion would be 140k AA)

I am based out of YYZ and usually travel to either Istanbul/Dubai (would love Japan/Korea if the points make sense)

Would my points get two business class tickets at least 1 way to any of cities I mentioned? Preferably not BA because their fees are insane.

thank you for your time.

There seems to be good availability in Business Class on Etihad's YYZ-AUH nonstop, and I believe that EY offers a free shuttle bus from AUH to Dubai. Just 70,000 AA miles miles per person for that award. (EY is one of AA's non-oneworld partners.)

No login is required to check award availability at aa.com or the AA app.

JL sometimes makes Business Class award seats available to AA a week or two before departure date on the JFK/BOS/ORD-TYO nonstops. AA charges 60,000 miles for such a redemption. You might or might not be able to get AA to tag on a YYZ-NYC/ORD/BOS segment (perhaps in Coach) if you were to find the redemption on JL.

Yup, +1 to what guv1976. Despite getting fewer miles in the account AA has a pretty good award chart and very reasonable fees on all but BA. BA on the other hand is pretty terrible for long haul awards both in terms of fees and Avios required. The best option with BA Avios for the time being at least (in my opinion) is to transfer them to QR and book an award with them.

I didn’t think I would be able to find space on Qatar but I just found Montreal to Doha (business) Doha to Dubai (first) for 150k Avios + 305 CAD for March 2024
not bad to be honest, it probably would have been cheaper if the second leg was business i assume.

i think I would still rather fly out of my home airport on Etihad though.

QR's AUH and DXB flights are only First, there is no business on those, it's still the same seat you'd have on a business flight just marketed differently on most of the Gulf area flights. They generally price the same as business in other programs, I'm not 100% sure about BA though. I can't find any dates with AA miles for March on QR, but you'd be 70k miles each way with AA miles. Not sure if your 150k Avios was one way or round trip?

It books into F and requires F miles to redeem; it also earns F miles for a cash booking.

AA doesn't upcharge award travel for F on the regional flights. I've priced itineraries Asia to Middle East in business and it still is 40k or 45k miles even with a regional "F" segment. Also on revenue tickets AA credits A class exactly the same as D class (which is what a DONEx books into) for the regional F flights. BA does seem to credit A slightly higher than J, C, D, I, R (150% vs. 125%) and seemingly charges more Avios on awards for the "F" segment.

Since the OP had the option of converting to BA or AA, I was pointing out that AA could have been a better deal despite having a lesser conversion ratio. They certainly wouldn't have charged CA$305 in fees, more like $50 seems to be the norm for QR long haul. Looking at Award Maximizer https://www.travelcodex.com/award-se...airport_to=dxb, looks like the 150k the OP mentioned was probably one way as well, making AA a far better choice, but sounds like the damage is already done.

correct it was one way

I haven’t been able to find any YYZ - AUH on Etihad via AA
is there a search tool that can make things easier or can I only search day by day?

thank you for the replies everyone.

I thought you found QR availability from YUL already? EY is very good, but it's not QR. I'd jump on that in a second, and you'd get the AS lounge in DOH.

But yes for AY, basically you'll have to do day by day searches, or just get on the phone with someone from AAdvantage, they can see a wider range of dates.

yes I did and I would take it if I was alone.
im travelling with my wife and child so its not convenient flying to MTL then Doha Then Dubai.
I would rather fly direct from yyz to Abu Dhabi.

I'm seeing availability in mid-November/early December on EY.

​​​​​​But how do you intend to pay for your child?

Example:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6162b9e45b.png

he’s only 6 months old, should be free.

thank you for this! I will download the app and check there because the site is not showing me this availability.