BA overpromises, again
 

I have had a less than stellar experience with BA's mileage program. Nonetheless, I re-upped for a BA Chase card because they were promising 100,000 miles after the first $3,000 of expenditures. Those were delivered.

Today I got an email from BA offering a 50% discount on reward miles purchases. As I plan to fly to London on July 1, 2012, and could save miles by flying BA business class v. AA First Class, (We want to be in flat beds so that we are reasonably alert when we pick up a car at LHR) I immediately tried to make reservations via the website and by phone.

I was informed on the phone that the flight I wanted (there is only one BA DFW-LHR flight) had no availability in business class. They had seats only in traveler and traveler plus. The seats weren't taken, they were only making them available on Wednesdays.

This left another bad taste in my mouth. Maybe I'll get a SkyMiles card and try Air France as an alternative.

My wife and I did this 200000 miles seemed like a great deal

after 4 flights with them the hundreds of dollars

of "fuel surcharges" stuck out for us also charging

for seat assignments but we did get over to Nice and Rome

via LHR from ATL which was good overall thought the flights

were ok connections were good.

We hop around for the sign up bonuses just did AA.com

MOB DFW CDG RT 40000 miles each on the AAdvantage

lost 2 weeks in April no surcharges for seats or fuel

$45 of tax each way best deal we have gotten this year

Except we snagged 100000 miles on capitalone.com Venture

this year DOUBLE miles on everything no foreign fees

Use this everywhere best deal in the sky.

We also opened Amex Open cards 750000 sign up bonus

if u put $2000 on each card by Nov so we are doing that too.

We had Skymiles used them all in May for a suite at

the bauervenezia.com Delta costs more than American for us.

Think you are dead on about BA but personally would

use the miles or lose them... has happened to me on American

so I book quickly as cheap as I can.

Good luck...

No airline makes every seat on every flight available for award travel, especially at a lower amount of miles as is the case in this offer. Being able to take advantage of lowest-tier mileage offers requires a lot of flexibility. Saying "I have to fly on such-and-such a date" isn't going to do it. Have you looked at other dates and other routings?

From what I understand, that promo unfortunately doesn't extend to business or first class seats anyway.

MareW is correct. The email I received states

'<i>...and use 50% fewer BA Miles on British Airways, whether you fly in World Traveller, World Traveller Plus, Euro Traveller or Club Europe.</i>'

Long-haul Club and First aren't included.

I was just able to make a reservation in Traveler Plus LHR - Cape Town with a three day layover in JNB (for which I was prepared to "pay" extra) for next year for $715 and 37,500 miles. It worked out great for me. No availability for US to LHR right now in Plus, but economy is available.

The rules are pretty clear in the email.

I got the same email and I've been trying to reserve a flight to from either DFW or IAH to Italy in WT+. I can't get the 50% off deal to work and the only reason I can see is that travel to Italy involves an airport change from LHR to LGW, as it appears all Italy flights go from LGW. I can only find the 50% off deal from trips to other countries that involve no airport change. I'm disappointed in this offer too.

If anyone else is able to book on-line for 50% off on a trip involving an airport change please let me know. If all else fails I will call BA and hold the phone for an hour before someone comes on the line. GRRR....

BTW, when I tried calling BA, I was on hold (speaker phone, I was able to do other work) for 29 minutes. I got very tired of the Flower Duet from Lakme.

Today, on the first day flights for my preferred date was available, I called AA. From going through the phone tree to providing a credit card for fees, I was able to get 2 business class award seats to London in 4 minutes.

The websites - AA and BA - work well to make simple reservations.

Jeff801 (or anyone) - so, you're saying that you used AA to book a BA 50% deal?
And/or does the BA 50% deal work for AA and all the "OneWorld" member airlines?
regards - tom

Tom, according to the email I received it only works on BA flights. I will copy and paste the text:

<i>A Qualifying Flight is a single sector or return redemption flight in Euro/World Traveller, Club Europe and World Traveller Plus cabins for any route flown on BA mainline scheduled services with a BA prefix, <b>but not on services operated wholly or partly by BA’s franchisees, codeshare partners or oneworld™ alliance members.</b></i>

And for the OP:

<i>For the avoidance of doubt travel in First class or Club World are not Qualifying Flights and not considered as part of this promotion.

P_M thanks, I got same email from BA. (I coulda checked it).
But, still don't know what Jeff801 did. They used AA agent to book AA flights? Yeah, so what use is that for this thread??? Or did Jeff801 use AA agent to book BA flights with 50% off?

regards - tom

Sorry I wasn't clear. I gave up on BA and booked an AA flight. I was trying to use AA miles on BA, at full price, but they did not have any allocation on BA for the days on which I could travel.

I'll try BA again tomorrow for the return flight.