Using AA Miles to Europe without British Airways???

It seems like any route for business or first at the saver level uses BA through London, which of course involves substantial taxes. Plenty available through London it seems but almost nothing else from any east coast gateway city to Spain or from Chicago non-stop to any major city in Europe. We want to go to Spain and Iberia Airlines seems to be a partner but none of their flights get picked up on the AA website when searching for award travel.

On the other hand there seems to be good availability on UA at saver levels so seems odd AA is so limited but for through London. Couldn’t use AA last summer to Italy and used UA but really want to figure out a way to get to Spain without London or alternatively two stops (one is fine) on AA since I have a lot of AA miles.

Any suggestions? I have to dig into the travel boards but figured I would throw it out here as well.

If you are looking for Iberia award space then you will need to search for it using the Ba or qanats website.

Saver level on AA through LHR has been an issue for sometime. They do fly their nice new 77W aircraft out of LAX and DFW with one of the nicest biz beds in the sky but space is hard to come by. If you are flying premium cabin with BA the fuel surcharges and taxes are high, roughly $500 per person per way but in my view its a small price to pay to fly F.

You should have better luck finding space with Iberia but I would try and get on one of their aircraft with the new business cabin, I would hate to fly biz to Europe on an angled seat.

Dan,

Go the the OneWorldAlliance web page and take a look at the partner airlines. You can fly via Finland or Spain.

Also, one little known tip > call the airlines. Agent availability is different than online availability.
Be pro-active in offering routings to the agent. Last year, we flew LGA/ORD/MAD as we made our way to Croatia.
That’s right, I flew out of my way to get the award that was needed to make the trip possible. You have to be flexible.

I do agree that UA has much more space that AA when seeking award tickets.

Brings up a rant I have about the direction of air travel: looks seriously like the airlines are moving toward configuring planes with low density, high priced seats, reducing the number of coach seats. Obviously this is a way for them to make more money, but it’s pretty maddening for someone who is never going to pay the business/first tariff. I wonder when the issue of carbon emissions is going to come into play, and put a huge monkey wrench in this trend.

To be honest, I’m petty disgusted by the need for people to isolate themselves and take up so much space on a plane for a few hours. Jeez, deal with it.

If phone agents are finding award inventory that you are not able to locate online then you aren’t searching right.

I’ve never seen anyone claim that phone agents have different award availability than what is visible online.

Flying finlandair via HEL is a good idea, their new biz class looks pretty nice.

Inside Flyer magazine regularly did reports where they showed side by side comparisons of call center vs online availabilty. It was an interesting read.

We came back from spain in december on IB using Avios points, MAD-ORD. Kids in Y, adults in J

As mentioned above, BA, QF, or IB’s website for searches

I was told by a BA rep that the airlines periodically release miles seats depending, I guess, on how full the flight is. Recently, we used Avios points to fly rt from LAX to Kona on AA. Originally, our only choice was a flight arriving in the evening but we kept checking and eventually were able to get a day flight. You also have to be prepared to fly mid week.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. Can AA miles be transferred into Avios points or do you somehow book using AA miles on the BA or IT website? Didn’t see anything that would permit me to do it.

I spent a bunch of time last night on AA and called them as well. Only direct flights from Chicago are on IB and none have current available but I can keep trying. I also noticed that if only one of the legs goes through London, then the taxes aren’t that bad. Booked to Madrid on the way out through Miami and back through London in 1st class for 62,500 each way and taxes were only $176 (almost all for the London flight). I cannot figure out what it comes out that way because for other routes with both through London the taxes showed as $1000 or so. Almost nothing in saver business but at least 1 seat was available almost every day I checked for 1st saver (even though the 1st class cabins had no seats taken on any of the flights that I checked).

I also noticed that they only have 1 seat at a time seemingly on a lot of planes. So for the flight back I reserved mine at about 11:30pm and then booked my wife at 12:30am when I couldn’t get two on the same plane at the same time in saver awards. Really crazy. But, at least they let me hold the flights for a few days for free. I will need to keep playing around. At this point it looks good through Dallas or Miami on the way out and then through London on the way back - as a side note, I like the overseas flight to be the last one of the trip anyway if I have a choice.

Right now my problem is that the best flights set up for either too short (7-8 days) or too long (14-15 days).

You would look up available flights on the BA website and then call AA to book. They shoudll waive any phone ticketing charges since you cannot book those flights online.

If you end up on an AA flight, the taxes are pretty low. they are much higher for flights on a BA flight. I imagine that’s what happened.

Ah, you are correct, the flight from London to Chicago is an AA flight and not a BA flight. I hadn’t realized that was the issue as opposed to just going through London generally.

I’ve given up on trying to find award seats cuz:

1. My schedule isn’t flexible, I have to leave and come back on specific days.

2. Almost always, I fly international in the summer.

3. I want 3 seats up front and won’t split my family on different flights.

4. I won’t add multiple hours to my flight. I strongly prefer direct.

Therefore, I just bite the bullet and buy revenue seats. I now funnel all points to hotels where it’s easier to book a room.

So you pay cash for 3 F/J seats in the summer internationally each time? WOW.
Excessible balla right here!

No question about the bang for the point on hotels. For this whole trip to Spain I think we’l be able to use SPG points - Barcelona, San Sebastian, Madrid and then in a small town in wine country in a very modern hotel. I’m trying to convince myself that if I use miles for airfare and points for hotels, it will be a really cheap trip not that the dollar is so strong…somehow I think it still will end up costing a bunch. We used points at the St. Regis in Florence last summer and stayed in a suite (they upgraded us) that I could have never afforded.

Europe is tough but doable. Asia is very doable, CX is pretty generous with J seats far out, I’ve seen up to 5 from the U.S. To HKG.

Lol, one of the few times I was successful using miles was to book a last min CX flight in J for my wife to Taiwan for a family emergency on their new 777 metal. She’s now a big believer in sitting up front. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. You never miss something if you’ve never experienced it.

Europe in the summer is near impossible for 3 award seats at saver level in F/J. Maybe a year in advance but my vacation schedule doesn’t come out that soon. That’s why I’m planning a trip now to Europe for this summer cuz I just found out when my vacation time is. One seat is doable, 2 is super duper challenging, 3 is impossible without flexibility.

Possibly and until we travel with our son next year, I won’t know…but, that said, every plane I checked for seating availability had every 1st class seat available - across a whole week or so of a bunch of flights. And, when I held the flight that I held, I was the first to choose seats, even on the domestic connecting flights. Maybe they dole the seats out one at a time, like I found out last night and you just have to hold, wait and hold and then wait and hold again for the third, hopefully within the 5 days they let you hold the reservations. I agree that you have to be super flexible. I usually book the airfare before booking the hotels and figure, I’ll manage with hotels once I have the airfare nailed down.

I almost hesitate to post this in public, but I had a lot of luck with the AA call center. It wasn’t cheap, but the service was uniformly excellent. They have partner availability that is absolutely not available on aa.com. It’s true that to get the best availability you need to be flexible and call 330 days out. The way to get the tickets is to call and hold (not book) a one-way that leaves a couple days before you really want to leave. Then call back the next day and see if you can move it up, etc. They’ll only hold for three days but you can push them out ad nauseum if you say you’re trying to assemble an itinerary. It took many hours on the phone, but I was able to book 3 people from SJC and one from CLE roundtrip to Paris for the minimum mileage (160K plus an extra 30K to send my mom back in business) and $900. The only reason it was that much in cash was I just could not get availability on the SJC-LAX leg, so I elected to pay cash rather than blow 12.5K miles on a short domestic segment.

BA’s surcharges are what make the flights so expensive, not the UK taxes. The lack of disclosure is deliberately confusing at best, fraudulent at worst.

The perfect use of avios as it’s only 4500 miles. That is if there is standard AA availability.

FWIW AA released a lot of seats in business this week for travel in november and december. i even pulled up 3 seats for some LHR-JFK flights on AA metal. I think Chicago has even better avail.