Up to 33% bonus when you buy American Airlines miles (and AA ‘sweet spots’)

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• Frankie says:

  19 Jan19 January 07:55

  Hello
  Although not really a comment on the above post I hope its ok to ask here. Has anyone ever succeeded in using a BA Amex companion voucher to get to Sydney (Sydney is BA’s only BA plane route so the only OZ option) club world or First? Been trying every day since my voucher kicked in a month ago to fly next Boxing Day. Been also trying SIN and BKK to at least get two thirds if the way there. Is my search futile and I should bite the bullet and pay for economy seats and just suffer it? I was on the computer at 00:01 on the day Boxing Day outbound became an available date but no BAEC avios seats were shown. I thought there was always a couple of redemption seats available in each cabin.

  • Jason says:

    19 Jan19 January 08:11

    Didn’t see any last year in business or first, Ok in economy.

    • Jason says:

      19 Jan19 January 08:11

      I should add around Xmas

• james67 says:

  19 Jan19 January 08:02

  Despite this not being the best deal AA offers I think your assertion that it is probably not worth buying all the miles you need for a trip should be considered more seriously, especially for people who are miles-poor and other options such as SPG card are not available to them at present. For example, in this deal we are getting 60k miles for about £760 so for £800-900 it is possible to get a return business class trip to the sweetest spots from departure points such as DUB or AMS. Ignoring the sweet spots, for example, a one way business class from south east Asia to Europe could be otained for under £850 with 7500 miles left over towards the next trip. It is true that during exception promotional with the likes of AY or MH you might achieve something close as a revenue fare and obtain a few thousand miles too but such opportunities do not come along often. For those who want or require complex itineraries then the argument for buying all the miles required becomes even more compelling. In my experience a good AA agent can be very amenable to helping customers piece together complex routings which would, for example. enable them to fly from BKK to EDI allowing almost full 24hr stopovers in say HKG/KUL and/or LON. For somebody who wants to do something like this then they could still obtain amazing value from buying all the miles required.

• Neilc says:

  19 Jan19 January 08:22

  I was about to book Dubai with BA in first but this has made me reconsider and look at etihad…. How do you get started with checking availability, transferring points etc. large chuck sitting in Amex MR if that helps?

  • apoorva says:

    19 Jan19 January 08:50

    Nelic
    You can go to Etihad website>Etihad guest login>Your miles>How to redeem to check reward seats availablity( dont need an etihad guest logic to check reward availablility). The seats marked as Guest Business and Guess First are the one’s available for redemption using AA miles. Once you check availablity on Etihad website, you call AA to book the seats. LHR to Abu Dhabi is 60K AA miles return in business and 80K return in First ( approx £210 in tax and charges). I recently booked Abu Dhabhi to LHR on Business class for 30K miles, £8 tax and £5 telelphone booking fee !

    • Dave P says:

      25 Jan25 January 19:21

      I have just looked at availability for one-way (LHR – AUH) in First following your info above. Very hard to find, but seat in Guest First on 16 August on Etihad website showing as 55,109 miles not 40k as given above. Is the 40k what you are charged when you call AA reservations or has cost in miles risen?

      • Rob says:

        26 Jan26 January 09:24

        40k if you use AA miles, correct. Etihad asks for more if you use its own miles.

  • Rob says:

    19 Jan19 January 09:45

    Amex MR to AA is not great – you need to go via Starwood Preferred Guest, so only 0.625 AA miles for every 1 Amex point.

    Etihad is an Amex partner directly, remember, so you can go 1:1 into them. However, Etihads mileage chart is pretty expensive – I think F is 110k Etihad miles, return, so minimal difference compared to going into AA at 1 to 0.625.

    Why not use Avios to try Qatar First? That would let you use the Avios you have whilst also trying a very snazzy F product.

    • James67 says:

      19 Jan19 January 12:04

      I have done exactly this for a trip next November. Opted for F on QR1/2 hoping that eill be the launch schedule for QR a380. Also hoping QR will want to outdo EK on their a380 F product.

• Matt says:

  19 Jan19 January 08:50

  I’m with James67. Work often takes me to Pakistan and a return in business class (either on Etihad or Qatar, unless I’m mistaken) will cost 60k. Buying these for £760 is a great bargain – cash tickets would be nearer £2k, possibly more.

  Obviously there are the usual caveats – availability may be limited, taxes still have to be paid – but this sweet spot is particularly sweet!

  • apoorva says:

    19 Jan19 January 09:10

    Buying 60K AA miles would cost around £760, taxes and charges for a LHR-Abu Dhabi business class return would be around £220 ( plus 60K AA miles) . Total cost is around £880 for a business return. You might have to be flexible with seat availability, also Etihad releases only 2 business class and 2 first class tickets as reward seats ! No ideal for a family of 3/4. They release 5 economy seats per flight ( tax and charges £135 pounds plus 40K AA miles for LHR Abu Dhabi return)

    • Matt says:

      19 Jan19 January 10:05

      I heard that Etihad tend to release 2 more J seats when the first two are booked, but I have no idea if this is true or not…anyone? Qatar availability seems pretty good, usually at least 1 or 2 seats per flight and sometimes up to 4.

• Mo Si says:

  19 Jan19 January 09:21

  I second both Raffle’s comments about AA’s Australia sweet spot and james67’s comment about good AA agents. I ‘commute’ to NZ most years for vintage (wine) and, this year, what with Raffle’s excellent posts about AA and Starwood credit cards, I’ve got Auckland to Manchester (with overnight in Melbourne) on Qantas First for 80,000 miles and £58 taxes! AND that includes ‘chaufferdrive’ (which will also take me into Melbourne, where I’m dropping in on friends, and back to the airport).

  Admittedly, availability was very limited – I was just lucky that pretty-much exactly the date I wanted was available (although there was plenty in Business, with a choice of routes, for 60,000 I think). And when I called AA to book, the excellent agent advised me to book the basic route online and then call back to make the time changes to the exact flights I wanted, thus avoiding the phone booking fee (schedule changes are free). [Unfortunately, I got a useless agent the next time I called, so I tried again and then got another good one.]

  So headforpoints is totally paying off for me! Now I’ve just got to decide where I’m going for my $100 Shangri-La meal ;D

  • John Peden says:

    19 Jan19 January 19:16

    Did you miss a number in front of the 80,000 miles? 🙂

    • Rob says:

      19 Jan19 January 20:22

      No, 80,000 for a one way in F using AA miles is correct for Auckland to Manchester, amazingly.

      • John Peden says:

        20 Jan20 January 14:35

        Incredible.

• Volker says:

  19 Jan19 January 09:46

  “Flying to Cape Town on BA using Avios usually means flying to Johannesburg and using more Avios for a Jo’burg – Cape Town connection (30,000 return in Club Europe).”

  I take it the latter is a Comair flight? Is their Business Class product really called “Club Europe”? (It probably was while Imperial Airways still served that route…)

  While my comment might sound a bit cheeky, I am genuinely interested.

  • Rob says:

    19 Jan19 January 14:49

    It’s not called Club Europe, but if I don’t say that people don’t know what I mean. The Comair set-up is a bit odd, though – normal BA planes, BA livery on the crew etc etc even though you are in Africa.

• Pat Bucher says:

  19 Jan19 January 10:17

  Might be worth pointing out you can only buy 60k miles a year so if you go for this one and a 50% bonus comes along later you will miss out.

  • James67 says:

    19 Jan19 January 12:10

    Annoyingly a 50% bonus has appeared in the past only a week or so after the ususl 33% ended. Not alwayscthough so I guess it depends whether they achieve some target with the less generous promotion.

• Lostlamb says:

  19 Jan19 January 12:29

  Have to say Etihad availability in business from Heathrow is not great , at least in February and March could only see about 2 flights , also tax quotes vary but £250 the ballpark figure I got from the AA agent .

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