US Airways Award Bookings Using BA Avios, as low as 4,500 Avios one way
 

Once US becomes part of OneWorld, those of us with Avios (British Airways mileage currency) are going to find redemption on shorter US flights to be more attractive than with US miles. Let me attempt to highlight some important characteristics of Avios.

1. Avios is charged per individual flight segment
2. Avios is charged per distance of that segment
3. Coach is 1x Avios for a mileage band; first is 3x Avios. Unfortunately, this generally makes domestic F redemption unattractive with Avios.
4. Business is charged 2x Avios. Some North American airlines consider the front cabin as business for Mexico and Central America routes. Unfortunately, reports in this thread are that US markets them as F.
5. You can redeem one way awards with Avios
6. Avios is region agnostic. Avios can provide great value when flying to Hawaii for those who fly coach and can do so in one segment.
7. There is no ticketing fee
8. There is no close in ticketing fee
9. Should you call to book, there is a $25 ticketing fee
10. BA charges $40 to cancel or change a ticket

Avios Mileage Bands

• 1-650 miles 4,500 Avios
• 651-1151 miles 7,500 Avios
• 1152-2000 miles 10,000 Avios

Awards using Avios need to be booked on the BA website. BA charges for booking by phone. There are no additional fees for domestic awards beyond the security fee charged by any carrier. There are no close in booking fees.

A real world example is the cost to fly from San Diego to Phoenix. This route is under 400 miles. If I book in the next couple weeks, US charges 25K RT miles plus $108 (includes $25 ticketing fee plus $75 close in fee). BA will charge 9,000 Avios RT plus $5 security fee. I generally prefer one way awards. Avios provides that flexibility. I can get it for 4,500 Avios.

Using Avios for US flights to Hawaii
If you live in a gateway city and can fly to Hawaii nonstop, investigate whether booking with Avios is more attractive.

Example:
PHX-HNL - 2917 miles
Avios band: 2,001 miles - 3,000 miles for 12,500 Avios

RT with Avios is 25K miles. RT with US is 40K miles.

Note that the low band of US awards must be available in order to do an Avios booking.

How to accumulate Avios

1. Fly British Airways
2. Credit OneWorld flights to British Airways
3. Open a Chase British Airways credit card, ideally with a generous sign up bonus
4. Move AMEX points to your BA acount, hopefully during the 2-3 times a year when a bonus is offered (credit phlwookie)
5. Move SPG points to your BA account. 20K SPG points yields 25K BA Avios. (credit dtremit)
6. Form a household account (see BA forum for discussion) so that miles can be pooled

And from the BA flyer perspective: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...lub-guide.html

Last I checked, a good source of Avios without flying BA was to transfer AMEX points, especially when they run one of their occasional bonus point promos.

Presumably a cheaper way into domestic F on US using Avios exists for a US Platinum of Chairman who earned the "upgrades on domestic award travel" special dividend (85K miles flown or 105 segments). Any reason to think this wouldn't work if this was paid for with Avios so long as the DM # is on the award reservation?

From my 1 experience redeeming an award in Y and getting upgraded, I had a CP desk agent tell me that the way the upgrades work is that the computer is flagged to let you upgrade an itinerary in the "X" bucket. So, assuming (likely) that the Avios award ticket books into "X", then yes, a CP/Plat w/ the 85k special dividend will get the upgrade.

US Airways flights now show online on BA's site ... friend of mine says he already booked, although I haven't tried and some are reporting problems with ticketing.

PHL-AUA in First shows 30,000 Avios which is 3x the economy rate, so unfortunately the "coded as First" thing bites again.

I'm ex-YYZ (Toronto)

I see YYZ-DCA/PHL/CLT routes on Avios, but very very limited availability into Oct 2014, so much for hoping for 9000 RT short-haul :(

but seems to price out okay for 3 seats in Y though

Yeah, I keep getting shut out at the final step. After the attempt to charge my card for the fees goes through, I get the following message:

"Error. We're sorry, we are unable to process your request. Please contact your local British Airways office."

I think that's because US markets its flights from the NA gateway to the Carribean and Central America as first class, whereas AA (and UA and DL) market them as business class. Hopefully that will change soon.

Darn.

Nice primer -- thanks SanDiego1K!

Another method to add to the list is transferring SPG points to BA.

A big benefit of using BA Avios points for US flights (rather than AA/US miles) is the often cheaper cost to cancel or change the award booking, as long as it is done at least 24 hours in advance. [Cancel works better for me, and so I choose one-way redemptions most times.] That said, this element may be out or on its way out today or soon.

BA has no rapid redemption fee for online bookings at least but has some other kind of general fee (which is sometimes waived) if booked over the phone. [BA waives the telephone booking fee for me whenever I ask for it because of some trouble or limitation with the booking engine.] I have booked hundreds of AA and other OW (and some non-OW) short-/mid-haul flights using BA's program, and this year I've also been making such bookings even for departures a few hours from booking. In all of these bookings -- which cover most OW carriers -- I've not been hit by any rapid redemption fee from BA yet at any point since BA changed to Avios.

This is why I always now eagerly anticipate Amex to BA transfer bonuses.

Funny thing is that:

PHX-SFO is 651 miles = 7,500 oneway
PHX-OAK is <= 650 miles = 4,500 oneway

From CLT, 650 miles take you to lots of places - it goes far enough to FLL but not to MIA. It goes to ALB but not BOS. It goes to ORD but not MKE. It goes to MSY also.

Another application of this is of course US Air Shuttle.

BA is giving double Avios for US flights until June 30th. However, I'm not sure if it's for North America/UK/Ireland only. The promo header made that description; but the T&Cs didn't specify.

http://www.britishairways.com/travel...s/public/en_us is the link and http://www.britishairways.com/en-us/...ing-avios.html is the earning chart. It seems there is no catch?

the big issue is availability
 

I started this thread a few weeks ago when I saw that the big problem in using this otherwise terrific deal would be availability:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/us-ai...ard-seats.html

I'm not sure we really need 2 threads on what will inevitably lead to the same discussion: the benefit is great, but good luck finding seats -- especially since you really need nonstop flights to make the Avios redemption worthwhile.

I've been looking at flights from several different markets and my observation is that it's a real PITA to find availability in both directions. If you're VERY flexible -- aka, retired, and you can fly anytime you want -- you'll find this a terrific opportunity. If you're trying to get away for the weekend, you'll undoubtedly be annoyed. If you find something you can use, take it -- because it's not going to be like you can hop on a plane anytime you want.

So far, my limited observation is that they don't load many additional seats. Like there's a 50-seat flight I've been looking at for this Friday that's still 1/3rd empty, but no additional award seats have been made available.

And then there are times when it will be essentially impossible to find award seats. Like good luck using Avios to get away for the Memorial Day weekend. I must have looked at 2 dozen routes, and just gave up. Of course, given that the US airline industry has become an oligopoly, it's not surprising that they want to sell all their seats at peak time (and CAN sell these seats), leaving zero for award travel.

That is my experience as well; US has some last minute availability during slack periods (read: hard to fill up planes), primarily because they can ding folks with the usual fees AND a $75 fee on last-minute awards, which, in conjunction with taking 25,000 miles off the books, is better than an empty seat... but it's not like you're going to be seeing loads of availability. Those studies that show that US doesn't release a lot of award availability are flawed in a number of ways, but they do get that right.