Booking with American Airlines using Avios

[Iainm]

I’m looking to book a flight from Chicago to New Orleans next year using Avios.
I know that I can book the flight in the normal way on the BA website, but I’m wondering it’s worthwhile looking to book s soon as they become available?

I know BA is T355 and think American is T330 for releasing award seats, but is it worthwhile trying to jump on American as soon as possible at T330?
Or can I be a bit more relaxed with American?

Cheers!

[davefl]

There’s no guarantee you’ll see any seats at all on any dates booking AA awards via BA. The seat has to be at the lowest AA miles rate for it to appear on the BA booking platform and that’s dictated by AA’s revenue management system not by T+anything.

I picked a random date, 5/2/25, bizarrely there are only 2 direct flights that day, five mins apart at 8.15 and 8.20am.

Only the 8.20 is at the lowest rate of 9.5k AA miles. That does appear on the BA site at 11000 Avios + £ 4.50. You can choose a route with a stop but the price increases to 19250 Avios + £ 4.50 (both economy).

You’ll have to do your own legwork for domestic 1st as they will be akin to rocking horse droppings.

[Froggee]

To add to @davefl

As he notes, the taxes are £4.50 so that is what you lose if you cancel. So I’d book it when you see it as £4.50 isn’t really life threatening. Even if it isn’t your first choice flight, I’d still be tempted to get something locked down.

Also if you are silver or gold with BA then you can reserve main cabin extra seats free of charge whenever you like and it is reasonably more civilised (I’m 6’ 1”). The best seats obviously go first! If you are bronze you can try and grab them for free 24 hours prior to departure.

[Iainm]

Thanks, good info.
Great point about locking down a flight asap, safe in the knowledge there’s only £4.50 to be lost if plans change!

[ed_fly]

I think Qatar offer a slightly different pricing option, slightly more cash (~$10 usd) and less avios. A tiny bit cheaper for economy, more noticeable difference for higher classes.

[Stu_N]

AA are also notorious for cancellations and schedule changes if you book a long way ahead.

It can be worth booking any flight that is available for your route even if not ideal timing and hoping for a significant change. This will allow you to change to any other flight on same routing even if no Avios availability.

[Froggee]

Having said that, it still smarts that Mrs Froggee poopood my MCO-LAX flights that I bagsied for £17.60 and 64,000 miles (for four of us) on the basis that they left a few days earlier than ideal and would then necessitate a six hour drive North to where we actually wanted to be.

🔥🔥🔥 £17.60 🔥🔥🔥

United Airlines subsequently booked in First class for 💰💰💰

Sad face.

[annabh]

Stu_N wrote:

AA are also notorious for cancellations and schedule changes if you book a long way ahead.

It can be worth booking any flight that is available for your route even if not ideal timing and hoping for a significant change. This will allow you to change to any other flight on same routing even if no Avios availability.

We did book when they came out for August 24 and had an email on Sunday from BA saying we’ve had to cancel the flight, however it has been rebooked to a flight 30 minutes later so no big deal.

The advantage of booking early is more likely to get a flight you want and avoids any avios increase – since we’ve booked it has gone up so I’m holding onto it despite the slight change.