Sorry to be a pest but if it's 100k BA Miles return to Australia and it's 110k QF points for the same trip, am I correct in assuming that the conversion rate is 1:1? i.e. If I want to go QF then it will cost me 110k BA miles?

For the purposes of this answer, I have assumed that you are (i) BA Exec Club, (ii) UK resident and (iii) have access to the BA mileage.

If you have 100,000 BA EC miles then this is what you need to travel on any of the partner airlines in 1W between UK and Australia. You have the options of all of the carriers. Your problem may be getting a seat at some times of the year. I did a mixed BA out with a QF/CX back last time for the standard BA mileage price.

I have hundreds of thousands of QF miles that I am trying to use on QF for LON-Australia but can never get a seat on QF. This week will see me trying to get a seat on any other carrier via anywhere. QF sometimes allow you to go WTP if you are booking on a BA flight. For example, I was offered BA LON-LAX and then QF LAX-SYD with the BA in WTP. However, I really needed a business seat as it was straight off the aircraft and into a meeting both ways on the trip.

I hope that this helps, happy landings and good luck with availability.

spotwelder

Its the award chart in the program you belong to that matters.

A dozen other FFPs could all have different costs in miles for the same award and it would be totally irrelevant.

Thanks people; spotwelder is correct in assuming (i) (ii) and (iii). Having amassed lots of BA Miles by buying fatty biscuits and coffee I spent much of yesterday consuming same and getting ever more irritable as I tried to get my head round it all.

Availability will be a problem esp as it will be summer school hols over here in the UK (and everywhere else I guess) but I'll happily go on any route...BA availability is already pretty well non-existent for next July.

Q1: is there a max mileage restriction using my BA miles on othe OW carriers

Q2: what about stopovers....the BA website implies unlimited. If so, and I managed to get to say Tokyo, Singapore etc does this mean the QF bit can be say SIN-CNS-PER-SYD all with free stopovers? I'm assuming it can't be this good!

cheers!

How it works in reality I cant say but how it works in theory accd to the rules is that you can have a stopover if it's the most direct route to your destination. Lets assume that Perth is your destination then Cairnes and Sydney are not the most direct route. Singapore is so if you stop there then your route would be. In practice, I dont think you would have many problems going through Sydney, but accd to the rules it should not be allowed. It used to be that BA's partner awards allowed you to use BA *and* the partner. The text has changed on the site so I dont know if this is still the case. If it hasnt then maybe you could use BA to Sydney (since they no doubt would rather have you on a BA plane than a QF plane since then they dont have to pay much to QF for you to go) and then QF to Perth. I expect if they allow the routing then they will allow the stopovers. Im sure you coulds probably find a decent priced ticket to Cairnes from either Perth or Sydney.

Another option is that you could probably do close to your proposed routing with a Oneworld Award for 20k extra miles. Great Circle is down so I dont know exactly the mileage but I think you could get it under 25k with a bit of ingenuity and planning.