loribarber1

Hello - thanks so much to everyone who has shared their experiences and tips. Although the thread is from last year, I thought I would share my recent experience looking to use AA miles to fly round trip to Italy from Los Angeles. I was going to book two business class tickets: LAX - Naples, Rome - LAX; flying BA into/out of London. It was 100,000 miles per ticket plus - ready - $1,031.26 per person in fees. As others noted, most of the fees are small. But the biggie is the carrier imposed fee of $856 per person. I will be looking for other flight options that don't involve BA or may change to a different destination.

janisj

Yep - That's why avoiding BA metal is important . . . .

pavot

I'd like to reiterate the advice to those using AA miles to book flights: go ahead and make a reservation you can live with ... and then keep checking. AA will allow you to make changes without a fee for the same departure and arrival airports on the same day without a fee.

For a flight to London this summer, I wanted to avoid those BA fees, although the schedules were really good. But I booked an itinerary from Small Town Airport to Washington DC to Raleigh, NC to LHR. That was three flights, with long layovers, but just $5.60 in fees.

After checking every week or so since, I have successfully swapped for the following: Small Town Airport to PHL to LHR. Two flights. Comfortable layovers. Still $5.60. No British Airways.

Fight the fees, and keep checking for better flights.

Trophywife007

I've been able to book a few reward flights using BA avios and try to view the fees situation as what I'd pay if I were just flying economy but instead I'm flying in business.

The problem I've see with booking AA flights is that the ones that come up seem to go SFO - ORD - LHR or SJC - ORD - LHR, and they all leave early in the day with a several hour layover in Chicago which is not great. Plus, I fear the more stops equals more chances for luggage to go astray.

Where do I find the direct flights? Or are they not available as avios reward flights?

Gardyloo

<i>The problem I've see with booking AA flights is that the ones that come up seem to go SFO - ORD - LHR or SJC - ORD - LHR, and they all leave early in the day with a several hour layover in Chicago which is not great. Plus, I fear the more stops equals more chances for luggage to go astray.</i>

Well, since AA doesn't fly nonstop from SFO to London, your choices are to use BA's nonstop, or travel to some place where AA DOES have nonstops. On the west coast, that's LAX, period. Otherwise you have to head east - ORD, DFW, JFK, MIA, PHL, CLT, RDU. Doing so means you've got to take the time change into account; i.e. if you leave any later than noon you can't get to the midwest or east coast before the evening departures leave from there. So LAX is virtually your only option for AA metal that doesn't require you to leave the bay area in the morning.

<i>I've been able to book a few reward flights using BA avios and try to view the fees situation as what I'd pay if I were just flying economy but instead I'm flying in business.</i>

Okay, but it reduces the value of your miles/Avios to bupkis. Using AA miles, a 100,000 mile redemption (business class round trip) makes each mile worth around 3 cents for a ticket that would cost around $2500 - $3000 to purchase. But if that "award" ticket ends up costing $1000+ in fees, then the value of the miles drops to 2c or even less. So the hours spent looking for a cheaper redemption route conceivably could result in a thousand dollar savings. Not chicken feed in my book.

janisj

Trophywife007: I live in NorCal too and used to always trek to SFO to fly to Europe. But I haven't in several years now . . . I fly down to LAX and then fly AA nonstop to LHT. I MUCH prefer having the full 10+ hours on one flight. My airport is SMF but if it was SJC or OAK or SFO I'd probably do pretty much the same thing.

Trophywife007

Thanks for the tip. I'll start checking out LAX. Maybe the saving in fees paid will pay for the flight down.

janisj

OOPS -- >>I fly down to LAX and then fly AA nonstop to LH<red>R</red><<


Maybe try it once -- you can fly down on AA (actually American Eagle) on the same ticket, or on Southwest, relax in the Admirals Club and then be able to sleep non-stop over night. That works better for me.

Trophywife007

I just did a dummy booking on BAEC: LAX > LHR > LAX departing 12/7/16 returning on 12/22/16 on AA metal and the costs were $2450 which is about the same as a similar dummy booking (using different dates due to availability) SJC > LHR > SJC on BA metal.

Hmm...

Trophywife007

I'm assuming that if I want to book with avios, I have to go through the BAEC website...