The link is just under the first story.
Signed up and approved through the link noted above. Dana will be getting her own card shortly as well. Thanks to Jordan for the tip, and Dan for the link. Good info on the site as well.
Just be aware that BA socks it to customers in fuel surcharges when claiming “free” tickets. Currently the fees and taxes charged for claiming a roundtrip award ticket from North America to Europe total approximately $450+ regardless of whether it is for coach, business class or first class travel. So on BA, only business class and first class award travel make sense at this point. I don’t believe many other airlines pass on such a large fuel surcharge to passengers claiming award travel.
This is correct. You can also use your newfound BA miles to fly on American Airlines. As an example, a roundtrip domestic ticket will cost 25,000 miles and cost you just a few bucks in fees depending on how many segments you’re flying. You’re not locked into flying BA.
There are some on Flyertalk that justify the fee, since they’re flying upfront, and BA gets good marks for that. As for me, I’d never pay their YQ (fuel surcharge). You can also head to South America without excessive fuel charges.
most of the non-amerian airlines pass on large fuel surcharges. The taxes/fees associated with flying through LHR are high.
On the other hand, after the $30k spend, you get 2 tickets for the miles cost for 1. Still have to pay the fees for both. Comparison if using AA to BA
2 tickets
biz class JFK-LHR
BA 100k miles + $1500 (1 tix is miles free)
AA 200k miles + $530
so difference is just under $970 and 100k miles less. I’d be very happy to pay $970 for 100k BA or AA miles.
Signed up and should get my miles next month! Thanks for the heads up.
I fly upper class to Lon from LAX often on Virgin for 100,000 miles and fees (I am assuming taxes, fuel, etc.) are about $600. What are the total fees on BA for the same flight?
BTW I think the $600 is worth it for the 8 hours sleep I get in a bed with my own pj’s and slippers!!
Signed up based on this - thanks!
Don’t forget to sign up your husband - wife - s/o. 200k beats 100k.
BA lets 2 people living in the same house combine their accounts into a household account.
Check out my friend Brians blog http://thepointsguy.com/category/british-airways/ Brian answers all possible questions, and then some. You should read this blog just for the analysis alone.
Dan, I think it’s only domestic AA redemptions that have low fees, transatlantic and transpacific have hefty fees.
Also, the fuel surcharge fees are per zone, so if you are going to India/South Africa, etc. it will be around $900 per ticket in fuel surcharges, and if you stopover in London, it’s a few hundred more. They are a great deal but they are way far from free.
The best deal is LAN Chile to Easter Island. No fuel surcharge and they treat Easter Island like South America, rather than the South Pacific like other airlines.
Although taxes in London, Paris and a couple of other cities are MUCH MUCH higher in business class than coach, Alan is right, the total cost of a “free” economy ticket is just a few hundred less than a revenue ticket. Only take this up if you intend to fly business.
A lot of folks think BA is so much better than AA that it’s worth the $$$ to fly them. I’m not one of them, but having done the $30k spend to get a two-fer (before I realized that it would be double fuel surcharges), I’ll go with the flow.
But the “free ticket” in business class from LA to Capetown will cost me $1579 each, so pretty much $3200 for two (including a stopover in London, which adds a couple hundred in taxes). Now if I could do it without fuel surcharge, it would still be several hundred each in taxes, which all carriers pay. But $3200 is a lot, even though with the two-fer, it’s only 180,000 in miles instead of 360,000.
Therefore Dan’s advice is golden, do you and your spouse, and you’ll get enough for two tickets.
As far as the two-fer goes, it is only good on BA metal. If I had to do it over again, I’m not so sure I wouldn’t go LAN Chile and get two biz class tickets for the same 180k miles to Easter Island (with stops in Lima and/or Santiago) with minimal fees, and not bother with the 30k spend.
From what I hear**, LAN** offers a superior business class product… and at 80k, it’s a steal.
that is a great deal. Then again, not sure if I will ever go to Easter Island.
you also get 1.25 miles for every dollar on the BA card. So i accrue 37,500 miles w/$30k spend. Most only give you 1:1
I also got a 40% bonus recently for transferring amex points
of course the BA miles can be used on partners but the 2 for 1 only on BA metal as mentioned
Can BA miles be transferred into AA miles 1:1? If so, that seems to make the BA card better than the AA card at 1 mile:$1…
What was the conversion rate for transferring Amex points prior to the bonus (I assume regular rewards points) - never done it because the ratio is bad but then again, have never figured out what to do with my reward points… EDIT - just saw on the pointsguy website that Delta with 1:1 and then 50% bonus may be a current great use…will have to look around his website more!!
Thanks!
Also, apart from these special offers and the spend required on the cards to get the bonus miles from the offer, is it the 1.25:$1 that makes it worth continuing to use the card? I was planning on getting the card for me and my wife, spending the min required and leaving the card dormant…
For the most part, I’ve always thought (perhaps wrongly - definitely need to spend some time on the pointsguy website to see) that the best card “day-in-day-out” (ie without following for special bonuses and tricks) for points was the Starwood Amex because it could be used for hotels or converted with a 5:4 bonus (I seem to recall) to AA miles - with the option to stay at the hotels (eg, just used 88k SPG pts to stay at a St. Regis resort for 5 nights in a $1,000 per night room which seems like a killer use of points (plus no taxes which is nice) particularly since airlines are making it very hard to use saver miles rather than anytime miles).
Also, my father just returned from London and unless I missed something in what he said when he was trying to change to BA for a different flight instead of his AA flight, using BA instead of AA made it easy to get a business/first seat for the saver miles rather than AA for anytime miles, but would have cost an extra $450 per person for taxes - leads me to believe that AA charges much less than BA for using miles on international flights…of course, I’ll have to get the specifics from my father but at least that is what I recall. So his choice was to use an extra 37,500 miles per person or pay $450 per person to make the change he wanted.
you can not transfer BA to AA or vice versa. You can of course book AA flights with BA miles. The conversion of Amex to BA is usually 1:1. 50% additional for delta is of course better than 1:1 but delta sky pesos usually don’t go quite as far
I use my BA card to get to the 30k spend for the 2 for 1. I find great value in that despite BAs high fees. Spg is a great card for the reasons you have mentioned. However, not in all instances for me. I get 2X amex reward points for gas and groceries with my gold card. I will have to figure what non-amex card to start using once I reach the 30k spend on the BA card. Make sure you wait at least 6 months before cancelling the BA card as chase has been known to pull back miles. And yes, BA fees are higher than AA
Jordan - thanks for the info!! Seems like it is possible to book domestic AA flights using BA miles so that certainly works.
Never used Delta but tempted by the 50% bonus - why are they so bad? Availability issues? I like the concept that the transfer gets you their first rung of status so seemed a 2fer with the bonus and status…
By the way, have you ever done anything with Air Canada’s program? Seems like that is another attractive program for Amex point transfers.
delta is notorious for poor availability or ridiculously high redemption rates.
Last year I transferred Amex to ANA for our europe trip. Their redemptions are based on distance. was 68k for biz and 100k for first. Air Canda was 80k and 100k respectively. I just noticed that AC is increasing redemption rates on a vast majority of their awards. These specific flights are going up to 90k/125k
http://www1.aeroplan.com/use_your_miles/travel/flights/air_reward_chart.do?p=staralliance
Never done an Amex transfer - how long does it take? Just wondering about the chicken/egg issue - that first you identify available awards that fit your plans, then go to transfer the points in order to redeem the awards, only to find out that whatever number of days later the miles post, the rewards are no longer available and you wasted the transfer and points…I think when I last checked into transfering SPG points to AA miles they said it “could” take 10 days - not sure how you manage that…
with amex, most are instantaneous. ANA took 2 days. I was able to hold the flights with ANA prior to transferring. YMMV.
haven’t transferred from SPG yet. They often exaggerate the transfer time. again, YMMV