Booking BA with AA FF miles.
 

Anybody using AA FF miles to fly on BA have any luck booking the BA flight? If you were able to book FF on BA with AA, please, Let me know what time period your flight is. We are trying to book the BA portion of our trip to Europe, we have the AA part on hold. .
Thanks for any info.

BA can be hard to get for AA FF miles unless you plan way ahead (329 days).
What are the flights you are trying to book?
If you are having trouble with BA, you can try Iberia, Finnair, Brussels Airlines or combination of any of above with AA.

No problem booking BA flights with AA miles and no, it does not have to be 330 days out.

The only problem is booking US-UK flights. You can't.

Any other flights are usually no problem. If you are willing to connect through Canada then you can get on BA flights to UK. If you're just looking for UK-? then it's usually no problem, but you need to call the AAdvantange desk to make this res. You can't do it on line.

Yesterday, I booked a flight using AA FF miles to Cairo, returning from Amman for March, 2009. The London to Cairo leg is on BA--no problem. It is coach, however, so that makes a difference.

"BA can be hard to get for AA FF miles unless you plan way ahead (329 days)."

This applies mostly to business class tickets - they go very quickly (mostly to BA FF's); economy should be easier.
Also depends on destination - Italy is the most difficult to get in Europe (I guess it's popular with Brits for the summer).
OP did not state what tickets he is looking for.

I usually do business or first on a very complicated, 16 segment AA OneWorld award ticket which in most instances includes BA for at least 3-4 segments. I always do it about 3-4 months out and never really had a problem. Maybe a +/-1 day adjustment, but that's about it.

I am very happy for you AAFrequentFlyer.
However, that has not been my experience. Recently in April this year I tried getting 2 business class tickets LHR-JNB for Jan/Feb 09 and there was not one seat available for the entire month from middle of Jan to middle of Feb. That was 9 months out and they have 2 daily flights on that route!

Wait and be happy....:-D

To illustrate my point, I just did a search on BA's web site for business class LHR-JNB (for miles). From 18th of Dec till middle of April there is availablity on ONE SINGLE day only (March 17th - and that's for BA, I doubt it would would be given to AA FF).
Iberia, on the other hand, has lots of availability from Madrid & Barcelona to JNB starting in early February i.e BA is much more difficult than Iberia, for example.

Like I said, wait and be happy....

AAFrequentFlyer - I am not sure what am I supposed to be waiting for; surely not for those seats for LHR-JNB. I need to make way too many other arrangements ( like a cruise..)and I cannot do it without flights nor can I do it at the last minute.
And, I am usually happy.

You do what you need to do, but like I said, 3-4 months out usually works for me. BA, IB, CX, JL, AA, has always come through for me.

All I'm trying to say is this. Just because one can't book a seat 11 months out doesn't mean it's a done deal. Airlines open up seats closer to the flying dates.

I understand that.
I use my miles for business class tickets for long haul flights (S.Africa, Australia, Asia, etc). When I travel that far I usually spend 2 -4 months away and get the most out of my FF miles as I cannot return there anytime soon(I don't earn miles quickly).
For these long trips, which often include cruises, I cannot wait till last minute for tickets to become available. The trips require a lot of planning, scheduling, etc and it starts with my flight. I can always change it later, (Iberia to BA, etc) but I have to have the flight before I plan my trip. I have to know I CAN get there in business when I need to.
You may travel differently with a more open schedule and thus can get tickets closer to travel. I cannot.