Questions and Answers

Hi All, I have been a loyal British Airways Executive Club member for 7 years out of which 4 have been Gold. I used to live in London and so BA worked out nicely as they had good longhall network. But I have moved to the SF bay area 7 months ago. I am still using BAEC and crediting my flights there but I am really reconsidering my options. I have about 300k BAEC points and BA Amex 2-for-1 companion voucher that I can use for J or F travel. I also have a gold upgrade for 2 voucher that I need to use at some point in the next 10 months. My travel is mostly within the US (3-4 transcon trips in J or main cabin extra) + 3-4 trips to Europe + 2-3 trips to India (mostly HYD – DEL – BLR). I may also do 1-2 long vacation trips but I tend to use the BA vouchers for those. I typically go up to 3000 tier points yearly on BAEC.

I live close to SJC airport and so would like to go in and out of there preferably. But going to SFO isn’t a big ordeal. So what program do I target? My BAEC membership year expiring in a couple of weeks and so need to make a decision. My favorite airline in the US so far has been Alaska but I only flew a couple of times with them. I was using AA for transcon flights with mixed results.

I have Amex platinum card. I earned about 80k points so far in 7 months.
Also, not a major point of consideration but I am blind and tend to prefer airlines with good cabin crew. BA for all of its faults has one of the best cabin crew who are aware of how to interact with disabled people.

Any thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Thanks,
Kiran

hi [USER=2882]@Kiran Kaja[/USER], the soft product (cabin crew) probably has the greatest degree of variability. I’d stick with what has worked well for you in the past (BA) for your flights. You might consider switching to AA for points accrual just so that you can earn awards that are more reasonably priced. Since you fly domestically you should be able to earn the four AA segments you need for status. You should be able to put in your BAEC number at booking for status benefits and then switch to AA at the gate for mileage earning until you earn enough to qualify for AA status.

[QUOTE=”Gaurav, post: 27827, member: 79″]hi [USER=2882]@Kiran Kaja[/USER], the soft product (cabin crew) probably has the greatest degree of variability. I’d stick with what has worked well for you in the past (BA) for your flights. You might consider switching to AA for points accrual just so that you can earn awards that are more reasonably priced. Since you fly domestically you should be able to earn the four AA segments you need for status. You should be able to put in your BAEC number at booking for status benefits and then switch to AA at the gate for mileage earning until you earn enough to qualify for AA status.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for recommending AA. I was under the impression that AA earnings are no longer mileage based?

Correct, they are not with a few exceptions. However, if you do the actual flying on a partner like BA, miles will be awarded based on the miles flown with an adjustment based on fare class. Even if you earn a few less miles AA, I do feel they have better redemption pricing compared to BA. Obviously you’d have to run the numbers based on your situation to see what works best for you.

That’s true but when it comes time to redeem the miles, you’ll likely come out ahead using AA miles vs. Avios.

Flying SEA-JFK one-way is 12.5K in economy for either program – as long as you get the non-stop. But if you have to change planes BA will price each segment separately so you might pay 17.5K or even 20K, depending on where you connect. With AA it’s 12.5K no matter how many connections you make.

And of course if you’re flying internationally, there are fuel surcharges. With BA they’ll charge them regardless of which airline you’re flying whereas AA only imposes them on flights on BA metal (and Iberia, though it’s usually not as onerous).