Best options for flying from Mexico to Europe with AAdvantage or Alaska points?

[AAdvanadium]

I’m trying to find a way to use points to travel within the next two weeks from Mexico to Europe.

(My final destination is Warsaw, so I’ll most likely have to book a budget flight for the last leg to Warsaw. I am starting in Guadalajara, Mexico).

I’ve been calling in to AAdvantage bookings looking for Iberia flight options but they seem to be quite limited. I did find the following options:

Bogota – Madrid (June 10th) – Iberia (40k miles + $147)

However for the other 2 legs of my journey, it would require buying flights out of pocket.

Guadalajara (GDL) – Bogota (BOG) – $87 (Viva Aerobus)
Madrid (MAD) – Warsaw (WAW) – ~$250+ (Ryanair)

I tried looking for a continuing flight from Madrid to anywhere east, which would be cheaper to fly from to Warsaw (Norway, Sweden, Italy), but Iberia has no seating at all to any cities I looked at, on June 10th – June 15th.

Any tips on other options I could use to get from Guadalajara to Warsaw (or Mexico to Europe really) using AAdvantage or Alaska points?

[Rob]

Iberia has far better inventory via Iberia Plus than is offered to American (or indeed BA) so if you have Avios as opposed to AA / Alaskan miles – and note that not many people who read this forum have AA or Alaskan miles, since we’re UK focussed – I would look at that.

[Lyn]

Presumably you have already looked for flights from Mexico City? If you have enough miles, Alaska shows British Airways from MEX to Warsaw via LHR in Business class for 70K miles and $331. BA 242 on June 12, then BA 842 in June 14 after an overnight stay at LHR. You may only be able to find this using the multi-city option and specifying the dates.

Perhaps AAdvantage would have availability for the same flights in economy for fewer miles if you are only looking for economy flights.

How about flights from Guadalajara to Europe via various gateway airports in the US? For instance, it looks as if American flies from there to Dallas (DFW) and then you may be able to connect from Dallas to London on British Airways or American, and perhaps from there to Warsaw. AA also fly from DFW to Paris, and perhaps to Milan?

One advantage of Alaska miles is that they allow a stop-over on a one-way award, so this gives some flexibility if onward flights aren’t available until, say, the next day, as in my example above. It isn’t easy, from experience, but these can be sometimes be booked as a multi-city award one once you have found availability on the individual flights. Their one-month award calendar (use “all search options”) is useful for checking several days at a time.

The disadvantage of Alaska miles is that they often have limited award availability on partner airlines, and possibly even less than using AA miles. Also I don’t believe you can mix two partners on the same award, like AA from Guadalajara to London via Dallas and then BA from London to Warsaw.

[Lyn]

I have just checked and the same BA Business class flights from MEX to Warsaw on June 12 via LHR are available via AAdvantage. 62.5K miles + $504.20. Not available in economy. Also Alaska shows the flights without needing to use Multi-City booking, and gives the additional option of First class for 97.5K miles + $331. All a lot more than the economy flights you found via Bogota of course.

[AAdvanadium]

Rob Burgess wrote:

Iberia has far better inventory via Iberia Plus than is offered to American (or indeed BA) so if you have Avios as opposed to AA / Alaskan miles – and note that not many people who read this forum have AA or Alaskan miles, since we’re UK focussed – I would look at that.

Thank you Rob. I’ve heard of Avios points but have never earned any.

Are they hard to earn for US citizens? Most of my miles are from credit card bonuses – my flying is usually within Mexico, and then once a year to Poland if I can, from Mexico or the US.

[AAdvanadium]

Lyn wrote:

I have just checked and the same BA Business class flights from MEX to Warsaw on June 12 via LHR are available via AAdvantage. 62.5K miles + $504.20. Not available in economy. Also Alaska shows the flights without needing to use Multi-City booking, and gives the additional option of First class for 97.5K miles + $331. All a lot more than the economy flights you found via Bogota of course.

Thank you Lyn. I try to avoid BA because of the fuel surcharges. Just curious, how come people take those deals? It seems like you’re still almost paying for a full ticket price, plus a bunch of points.

The MEX – LHR – WAW flight for 70k points and $300 doesn’t sound that bad though. I was looking around yesterday and found a CUN-FRA flight with Condor (Alaska) for 65k points plus $65. Then the GDL – MEX flight will be about $100, and the FRA-WAW flight was $150. So about $300 as well. Just with very long layovers (7 hrs in Cancun airport and 10 hrs in Frankfurt – gonna be a long 2 days).

For the flight back, from Poland to Mexico, would BA most likely be my best option then? (WAW-LHR-MEX) and then a cheap flight to GDL from MEX?

Also looking at Iberia, I believe they fly WAW-MAD and then MAD-MEX, but it seems quite difficult to find rewards seats with them.

[Lyn]

Both BA and Iberia use Avios, and they can also be transferred between the two. US residents can earn Avios through BA or Iberia credit cards issued by Chase, and by flying other OneWorld airlines like American and Alaska. I imagine Iberia would be the most useful in your case, although Iberia have some restrictions on changing award flights on partner airlines which BA don’t.

There is a lot of very good information here on HeadforPoints on using BA avios, including some basic beginner articles, so I would start there. Rob has also written occasional articles on using Iberia avios.

You are correct that BA “surcharges” can be high. In fact the $331 for BA business class passed on through Alaska sounds low compared to the equivalent from US cities, which are usually higher than in the other direction. The other anomaly is that, for flights back from Europe, the charges can actually be higher from London than connecting from other European cities because of UK departure taxes. Surcharges booking through Iberia avios can sometimes be lower than booking through BA.

In terms of flying BA back from Warsaw to MEX via London, I have just checked the Alaska web-site for award flights in June, as an example. June 21 shows availability in all classes, starting with Economy at 42.5K miles + $235.

You may see comments here about economy awards being less valuable than business awards, which indeed they are, but sometimes they are worthwhile for flexibility. Otherwise it is always worth comparing to the actual cost for cash flights, especially for economy or if there is a BA sale.