Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

How to book American Airlines flights with Avios whilst ba.com is not working properly

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

In theory, booking American Airlines flights with British Airways Avios is very straightforward.

British Airways will show American Airlines flights on their booking system and you book them like any BA redemption.

However, ba.com once again has issues displaying American Airlines award availability. This has been going on for a couple of weeks now with no end date in sight.

The good news is that you can still book American Airlines Avios redemptions.  The bad news is that you need to do some research first and then call the BA call centre.  There are reports that the call centre can also struggle to see availability at times, but you do at least have a chance.

You will need to use the American Airlines website to find dates with available seats, which to be fair you should be doing anyway as their search system is easier to use and more advanced than the BA one.

How to find American Airlines business class availability

Here is a step-by-step to finding American Airlines reward availability via the AA website, which you can then call BA and ask them to book for you.

On the AA home page, enter your preferred flight details, select ‘Redeem Miles’ and click ‘Search’.  On a route flown by American and other carriers, you may want to go into ‘Advanced search’ and restrict the search to AA.

On the results page select select ‘Economy (or BusinessFirst or First) MilesAAver’ and ‘Full Calendar’.  You can only book MilesAAver redemptions using Avios – ignore the other options that the website offers.

There is one thing you need to know.  When you click on the coloured menu options, eg First MilesAAver, you will see results in two colours.  Only days showing the same colour as the menu bar are bookable.  Other days show one of the other available options, usually an AAnytime award which BA can’t book.

In my example, you want days showing 57,500 miles seats.  Click through and make sure that the flight offered is direct.  In this particular case, between New York and Heathrow, we recommend the 77W flights on new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft as these have by far the best seat.

Usually you would go over to ba.com at this point, plug in the same dates and the same flights will show.  But with the BA website currently not showing American Airlines flights you will need to give the BA call centre a call in order to book, with fingers crossed that they can get it to work.  Make sure to ask them to remove the phone booking fee as the flights were not available to book online.

For clarity …. you do NOT pay 57,500 miles.  That is the price if you have AA miles.  You will, in this example, pay 60,000 Avios each way which is the one-way cost of an Avios business class redemption from London to New York.  Remember that all American Airlines flights are charged at peak day Avios pricing.

Hopefully this method can help you get around the current inability to book American Airlines redemptions online.

This is also a useful method if you are looking for American Airlines redemptions domestically as the AA website will often suggest flight combinations which ba.com does not spot.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Comments (36)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Thomas Howard says:

    If AA redemptions are charged according to the Avios redemption chart in points, does that mean you’d also pay BA surcharges?

  • James T says:

    Rob

    Slightly off topic. Do Avis post the bonus Virgin miles separately from the base miles. My account shows only the base 500 miles from the recent offer. Or is this a sign of a glitch in the system to be followed up? Cheers.

    • Leo says:

      They do post them separately but mine have posted (separately) at the same time on 2 occasions -so yes you need to look into it I’d say. Did you use the link?

    • Rob says:

      Not sure to be honest.

  • DaveL says:

    Totally OT, but I’m on a ba flight which is going to be delayed over two hours but likely less than three (within EU, under 1,500km). The aircraft has been boarded after 1+ he delay and meet moved to a ‘remote stand’ by ATX for a further 1hr wait, so it has technically departed but will be over two hours late at destination.

    Technically we would be entitled to food/drink due to length of delay in terminal, but since they boarded the aircraft there is no way to spend vouchers and nothing being offered.

    Should I just ‘get over it’ or should I expect BA to at least throw a few avios our way to make up? I get that these things happen but it has been a frustrating experience on many fronts.

    • Thomas Howard says:

      I’ve been delayed 36 hours due to weather and got nothing but my hotel bill. The really annoying thing is a Ryanair flight from the same airport to Stansted made it on time.

    • Genghis says:

      You’re still entitled to F&B 2 hrs+. No mention in regs of still being in terminal. Ie. Ask for BoB items

      • the real harry1 says:

        There were plenty of delays today out of our airport including our flight – reason was ATC-related so no chance of compo, we had an ATC delay on plane arriving @ airport before turnaround then sat there like prize plums for an hour until European ATC permitted plane to take to the skies, we never got over 2 hrs delay mark so no duty of care to be invoked, the crew did come round giving out water but I’d already liberated a couple of big bottles from the lounge 🙂

        @Thomas Howard – you were entitled to hotel, food, drink (not alcohol) and cost of communications – if they were reluctant to offer this, just claim it back later with receipts, they don’t have a leg to stand on as long as you were reasonable, £200 limit for a hotel room is reasonable but more if there’s no alternative available.

        @DaveL – as Genghis said – ignore the fact that nothing is being offered but on board just buy the M&S stuff/ drinks (not alcohol), keep receipts, claim back later. Or feasibly grab something to eat landside once you arrive 2 hrs late, you were famished due to the delay and have a legit duty of care claim.

        • the real harry1 says:

          There was some daft American woman who – when she heard we might be sitting on the ground for 90 mins – loudly started demanding she be given the right to get off the plane, not sure if she was panicking or missing a connection & thought she might find another way to get to LHR faster? As I said, daft. The cabin crew first said (they were discussing this right up front next to me in row 5) that she had a perfect right to self off-load & I was thinking OMG, she’ll have checked in luggage so here comes another half hour delay on top, he told her to go back to her seat somewhere deep in the BITB section while he went to ask the captain if it was possible. As I said, OMG scenario. But then I saw that he just sort of hid around the corner for a few minutes and had a wee chuckle with one of his oppos, next thing they secured the doors and she must have calmed down or got the message no way Jose because she was heard from no more, by me at least. Our 90 mins just waiting for ATC to give the go-ahead got reduced to about an hour then the plane made up another 20 mins so not such a bad result, hope she got her connection or whatever it was she was upsetting herself about.

  • ankomonkey says:

    BA also have the temerity to keep sending me the Club Magazine e-mail while the free competitions have been claiming my valid e-mail address is in an invalid format for several months. While I rarely fly them anymore because every aspect has become ‘meh’, I would like to win most of the random prizes they offer this way. The signed Creole cookery book I won from a Club competition a couple of years ago was a great Xmas gift for my brother. Sadly, I’ve had to pay for his presents the last couple of years…

  • Definitas says:

    The whole customer service experience with BA gets worse by the day and BA denying the interminable website issues just highlights the arrogance that BA basks in due to their monopoly on LHR slots which, in effect, removes effective competition. This lack of competition (coupled with IAG making healthy profits) means that BA has no need to work on its hard or soft products

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.