Spending avios on Reward flights advice
 

Morning morning,

Hope you are having a wonderful start of the week.

I am hoping to have the chance to head east—Japan, Hong Kong, perhaps the Middle East—and experience what is on offer beyond British Airways. I am completely clueless, as my routes have anyways been serviced by BA so far, but I understand Japan Airlines, Cathay and Qatar offer far superior products than British Airways, and I would love to maximise the value of the experience. Since I am flexible on dates and I am looking well ahead—basically booking as seats become available for next year travel—with a pinch of luck, availability should hopefully not be a problem, although I suppose the front cabins on these airlines and routes are fiercely contested.

What I am trying to prioritise:
-One or possibly two trips, departing from LHR and flying to Tokyo and Hong Kong, respectively, possibly hopping to Bangkok from Hong Kong for a couple of days. I could stitch them together into one trip if multi-city offers value.
- Get a taste of JAL, CX and QR front cabins, unless any of them is not worth compared to the others.
-Experience their top lounges— Long, timely stopovers are v welcomed.
-Since I would be booking well in advance and life happens, same-or-similar cancellation policy as British Airways on reward flights—full avios refund and £35 fee up to 24hours before flying—which I always thought was too generous, but has proved fantastically useful in the past.
-Enjoy the ride. Maximise the value of the experience, as these will be purely booked for that reason.

What I plan to use:
- British Airways Gold
- About 400,000-500,000 avios
- A positive mindset

For reference, a v quick and random search using the Reward flight search tool offered LHR-East using BA+CX in Club, returning Qatar First with a stopover for some 200,000. Would this be just about the best value I can get for my points?

I have tried to find some guidance on this, but failed to find so. Any help or pointers are greatly appreciated, from which airline and cabins to look for to where to book—using BA online tool, BA phone booking, or a partner’s website—to which silly mistakes to avoid since I am so hideously ignorant about it all.

Many, many thanks in advance and, once again, apologies if this topic has been asked dozens of times, as I rather assume it must have.

PS. On afterthought, some points are being held on American Express, so a non-oneworld airline could be an option if much better option, although I understand this is a oneworld forum and I hold no status with any other group.

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

If you can include two or more of BA's oneworld partners on the itinerary, and if the itinerary meets BA's requirements for a multi-carrier redemption, then yes, a multi-carrier redemption can offer very good value for your Avios. Note that redemption cost in Avios is based on the class of service of your itinerary's longest segment, so it's conceivable that you might be able to include some segments in F for the cost of a J redemption.

Your BA Avios can also be redeemed from a QR Privilege Club account by "linking" your BAC account to a QRPC account -- which might or might not offer better value for your Avios.

Edited to add: a BAC multi-carrier award redemption can only be booked by calling BA. But you should be able to check award-seat availability for each segment on ba.com before calling.

Hi internationalintrovert , and welcome to FT and the forum.

You have an incredibly wide ask, so I will try to narrow it down a little:
1. Your ambition to try the best of oneworld airlines, using Avios, is achievable... but you will often find first class is very hard to get so far out. I would be suggesting you book a business class ticket, then keep an eye out for first class closer to the time. Avios would work for most of them, but many FFPs, particularly Cathay, are more limited with flight availability on their program vs Avios. So you could use your Amex miles to, for example, transfer to Cathay Pacific's Asiamiles, where you will see far more seats than Avios. Note, this thread has a list of all the first class routes to try: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onew...es-thread.html

2. Then about the "best lounges". That is simpler, and as you are BA Gold/Oneworld Emerald... then you do get the best lounges, and unlike BA/QR, they aren't limited away from top elites. Essentially you want to try: NRT/HND (JAL First class lounge), HKG (Cathay First Class lounges), SIN (QF/BA First class lounges), and MEL/SYD (QF First class lounges). Any others aren't worth worrying about.

3. Then you get into the "routes" to take. Something that is a true long haul flight demonstrates the best of any airline's capabilities, on their newest aircraft. This would then be:

• Cathay(CX): Short-haul you can do HND-HKG or PEK-HKG, but really you want to do HKG-LHR in CX F, there tend to be quite a few seats on offer
• JAL (JL): Something on their new A350-1000 plane gets their newest seats, but I've found it hard to find spaces (LHR/DFW/CDG). You can get a reasonably experience if you were to do Tokyo-Bangkok/Singapore/Jakarta in F
• Qantas (QF): They only really have F on so few routes. Finding it on the way to/from SYD to SIN is likely the easiest. This is a reasonably length of time for business class too
• Malaysian airlines (MH): Only have business suites, which you can pay cash for, and a good route there is KUL-NRT, so you get their "best" lounge" in KUL too (I wouldn't count them as the best lounges above)
• Fiji Airlines (FJ) is just a fun one to take - their newest plane, the A350, does SYD-NAN which is a good 3-4 hours to enjoy
• I would get to the region with Qatar Airways, there is often a lot of First class availability with miles on DOH-HKG, or DOH-BKK, so book that to get here. Don't forget if you leave from outside of the UK you will save a fortune on APD
• And you can leave to get to the west coast of the USA fairly easily using Cathay/JAL/FJ on nice planes, or just head back to Europe with JAL or CX

I would not in any way waste your miles flying to the far east via BA, nor would I recommend any American Airline or Finnair unless you are really short of choices, QR is the best way to escape Europe (they also fly to the US if you wanted to do a RTW trip truly). 500k airmiles should hopefully be a reasonable start if you can find reward saver flights on Qatar, but you probably need more to get around Asia to try all of oneworld. You may find a RTW ticket from Tokyo is a better bet (in business class, way more availability then).

So, what route would I personally take to experience the best of Asia:

• Europe-DOH-BKK (QR Business then First)
• BKK - Tokyo (JAL F or business) or even better, KUL-NRT (MH Business or Business Suites), take a short flight here
• Tokyo - SIN (JAL F or business)
• SIN - SYD/MEL (QF F or business)
• SYD - NAN (Fiji business, return, just to try, you could get on QF business too on the same route to see how rubbish it is in comparison, but how much better than BA Club Europe)
• SYD/MEL - HKG (CX Business)
• HKG - LHR (CX First, probably with airmiles)

You could do this in reverse as well, though its a lot more expensive to take LHR-HKG in First with Cathay

Good afternoon,

Many, many thanks to both for such unbelievably valuable and kind replies. What an absolute difference makes to go from complete cluelessness to be filled in by someone with such wealth of knowledge.

Again, many, many, many, many thanks to both for taking the time to reply. It really has made a huge difference and I feel in a much better position to begin my booking research. I shall try to give back in the forum—although I fear my poor knowledge will greatly hinder the quality and quantity of my contributions.

Best regards,

ii

I was about to say something similar to guv1976, make sure you check the cost from QR Avios in addition to BA Avios. BA's online booking system often returns no availability for any flights that require a connection, especially if the connection isn't in a straight line (for example I was searching for CAI-NBO the other day, BA would not show me the QR flights that were available via DOH but both AA and QR did have them). QR also has a lower Avios cost on JL and CX flights, but might have higher cash fees, you'll have to weigh the difference. Also QR doesn't have JL in their online booking engine, you have to call or chat for JL redemptions which has an additional fee.

For lounges, since you're BA Gold you'll get access to the first class lounges in most places (Not DOH, as that's not a OW status lounge). The Al Mourjan (business) lounges in DOH and the CX First lounges are definitely worth a long-ish layover for (CX has a spa with complementary short massages). But for JL, their excellence is in the sky, their lounges are pretty ordinary and often quite crowded (lots of credit card status customers in Japan) so these days I don't look to spend any more time than necessary in them (I live in Japan so see them A LOT). Another poster mentioned the MH lounge in KUL, which the Emerald lounge (they call it Platinum lounge) is actually quite nice with a very tasty a la carte menu and sit down dining. QR also has outstation lounges in SIN and BKK that are both excellent, you can only access them on business class tickets (from any OW airline), similar to DOH they are not status lounges.

Sounds like you have some exciting travels ahead. You won't go wrong going long haul with any of JL, CX, or QR. Within Asia however both JL and CX have some pretty tired aircraft. You'll want to avoid JL's 787-8s which have angle flat business class, and CX has a ton of 777-300 (not ER) and A330's in their regional configuration which is just a recliner. So those will be a let down if you book one without knowing. I'll throw MH into the pot as well, a lot of people love to hate on them, but I have always had really excellent service with them. They operate mostly 737s in the region with standard recliners up front, but TYO and SEL both get A330 and occasional A350 service. I fly the KUL-NRT route once or twice a year and will actually choose MH metal over JL if it's available. (which is exactly what I'm doing in January 2026, JL code on MH metal)

Good heavens! Many, many thanks for this invaluable information and apologies for the late reply, it makes such a difference and will certainly put a smile on my face when I fly!

Best,

ii