BA Avios booking advice sought

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Viewing 13 posts - 16 through 28 (of 28 total)

  • Bath_VIP
    Participant

    SM,

    Concur about the “enhancements”! I’ve noticed this.


    SergeantMajor
    Participant

    Not such a bad thing, as makes it easier for those-in-the-know to get the seats we want! 😉


    Bath_VIP
    Participant

    Tangey1

    Thank you for your advice. I have just tried it out and it doesn’t appear to be the case that the flights appear on BA. Here is an example:

    LHR-SFO, one way, dep Fri 6th June 2014 in Business class.

    AA shows a number of connecting flights via DFW with the out leg being on BA193 which departs at 1155. The cost is 50K miles with the AASaver option.

    BA.com shows nothing on that day.

    What is curious about this is that AA is showing a BA flight as part of its ticket with BA flight number as well (not an AA codeshare number). Yet BA isn’t showing anything!

    Can anyone explain this?


    Papillion53
    Participant

    Bath_VIP@14:33

    Can’t explain it, but I did tell you this happens sometimes in an earlier post! We found it when we were coming back from the US and I had to change our flights, nothing doing on BA, but checking AA, found options available and a call to BAEC sorted our booking out – but sometimes a BA agent will not always see the availability, so you have to “insist” if you catch my drift and then they magically find it! Or sometimes they will show up on BA if you put the exact flight dates etc that you found on AA.com in the search function – quite why they don’t show up otherwise is still a mystery. For some reason last year there was always lots of availability through YUL and then connecting to wherever in the US or back to the UK. Just saying that a not so obvious route might show up availability.

    I find my lovely mini iPad screen shots saves me a lot of time from writing things like this down! 😉 🙂

    Good luck!

    Btw, my earlier comment about people booking many reward flights was aimed at those who really have no intention of using them, but book them on what seems to be a whim! 🙂


    tangey1
    Participant

    well I did say “should come up as bookable” :).

    BA should have access to any saver tickets you find on AA.com.

    However I seem to recall that BA’s award search has some problems with showing mixed airline tickets, i.e. that one is BA to DFW and then AA to SFO, not always, but sometimes.

    I think if you phone, the agent would be able to see and get you that award flight.


    Tim2soza
    Participant

    Thanks for all the advice. I have looked at east coast, LCY and Openskies options.

    On AA.com, if a sector is found, will they accept Avois. Is the FX rate 1 AA mile = 1 Avois?

    I’ve tried the year planner tool on the BA site, and even putting in a single Pax yields very little outside of Y to anywhere from Dallas westwards for a mid July departure.

    I think a phone call to BAEC is the next step, or perhaps some help in the Concorde lounge on the next outward leg.


    tangey1
    Participant

    you can’t book using avios on AA.com.

    To book those AA flights using Avios, you need to book on ba.com or phone baec. And remember, BA will only be able to see the aasaver flights (although as you’ve found out ba.com sometimes doesn’t show them).


    SergeantMajor
    Participant

    Always best to do your research on all the airlines you might use, then book with the airline which operates your loyalty scheme; calling up sometimes costs more but can be worth it.

    I have decent balances across Star, Virgin, AA, US Airways and BA accounts so if oneworld isn’t available I can fall back on one of my other options.

    As ever, don’t discount sale fares (latest BA sale just finished, but like World of Leather there will be another along in due course) or exEU trips.


    Bath_VIP
    Participant

    SM,

    I am curious that you have both BA & AA accounts. What is the advantage of this to you given that both are in OneWorld in any case?


    Tim2soza
    Participant

    AA site for redemption bookings is here. Loads of Anytime availability across the board for business class, but as Tangey1 pointed out, only AAsaver flights show up on BA, and there are almost none.


    tangey1
    Participant

    Bath_VIP,
    For those that travel a lot, it can be worth sharing your loyalty across different airlines. AA has some non-oneworld partners, such as Hawaiian, that you can redeem on via AA.com if you have AA miles, but not if you have BA avios. It also works the other way round, you can book Aer Lingus flights using Avios, but not AA miles.

    Also, taking the OP case as an example, those AA Anytime flights would be available to him, whereas, having BA avios, he can only access the AAsaver awards.

    Finally, different award programmes have different sweet spots, it can cost less miles, and sometimes startlingly less taxes and fees to use one airline over another.

    For example, I recently priced DUB-LAS via JFK return in economy on AA for next Nov. It costs 40K AA miles plus £31. To book the EXACT same flight on BA.com using avios costs 65K avios plus well over £200. You can see the details of it here:-

    http://www.goingonrewards.com/2014/01/dublin-to-las-vegas-return-flights-for.html


    canucklad
    Participant

    Have you investigated using EI out of Dublin.

    Cheap FR hop and you can scrap APD.

    I’ll add cheekily, at leat your not trying to find availability from EDI via LHR.


    Bath_VIP
    Participant

    I have rung about EI but no availability to SFO in June.

    Tangey, I understand what you say about having cards across different alliances. It is having two within the same alliance that surprised me so hearing about some of the differences is useful to know.

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