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In general, search on AA.com for award availability.

BA
If you want to book a flight with Avios, it is known from Dan's Knowledgebase that BA.com doesn't show availability very well, but some flights definitely are searchable there. Nonetheless, it's easier to just search AA.com, and if you find a MileSAAver availability, check BA.com to see if it shows up there, too. If it does, book it there. If it doesn't, you can always call up BA and reference the flight you found. Note that there is usually a very long hold time before BA picks up, and they will charge a phone booking fee. If the flight was unsearchable on BA.com, try fighting that fee, but YMMV.

IB
IB availability will not show up on AA.com You can call AA to find IB availability, but it's hard without being able to browse dates and have to ask the rep to check flights over the phone. Searching on Qantas.com will show IB flights - supposedly if they appear there, they can then be booked by calling AA.

OneWorld Explorer [OWE] The OWE has officially been cancelled [4/8/14] as part of the latest AA no-warning changing to its award program. Here's what the OWE looked like:
This is an around-the-world [RTW] award that is calculated not by the mileage cost of specific flights, but rather by the actual distance travelled on your trip. It is especially valuable for flying business class, as the difference in miles needed between coach and business is not very great on longer trips. See this chart to see the different tiers of how many miles it costs to travel different distances. You can take up to 16 segments on a trip, but there are MANY rules to follow when booking such an award.

Be prepared to spend a lot of time when planning this trip. (Personally [@Yehuda], it took 2 months with a few weeks of break in the middle from frustration.) Availability changes everyday, so you need to constantly check back to see if flights you needed are now available. It will also likely require changing your itinerary/order of stops numerous times. An itinerary can be held for 5 days (and can be extended past that on Day 5, if they are willing to rebook each flight for you, getting you another 5 days), but itineraries with IB flights can usually only be held for 24 hours. You will find that you will have to use hub airports since you're limited to OW partners. You will not find a flight from CDG-FCO without either stopping off in LON or MAD - both of which are out of the way. It's unfortunate, as it adds unnecessary distance miles to your trip, but it can be done. Remember that BA flights have high YQ, IB/AB have semi-high YQ, US/AA have very little YQ. (Unsure about other airlines, as my trip was TLV-Europe-NYC, so those were the only airline I had to work with.) You should check flight availability, again, on AA.com but the ticket must be booked on the phone (and they will charge a $25 phone booking fee, but again, try to fight it since this ticket cannot be booked online - although, honestly, by the time you've ticketed, they will likely have helped you out with much more than $25 worth of time). Technically, you can book it with any OW partner, but the odds are you probably only have enough AA miles to book this trip. AA reps definitely know about this award, although most have never booked it before. You will find that after calling so many times, you'll know more about the rules than they do. Once you have your perfect itinerary, they will have to send it to their rate desk to price it out. This can take ~24 hours. Because it takes time, if you have IB flights on the itinerary, they will make sure IB allows the flights to be held for longer than 24 hours, but confirm this with the rep before you hang up. Once it's priced out, you can pay for it. You can use 2 or more AA accounts to pay for it, but they will require each account to have enough miles to pay for 1 ticket. (e.g. If it costs 80K pax and you have 2 pax, they won't ask you to have 1 account with 160K in it, but they will require 2 accounts with at least 80K in each.)

Feel free to contact @Yehuda with any questions regarding the OWE.

« Last edited by AJK on July 27, 2014, 04:45:43 PM »

Author Topic: One World Award Search Tips  (Read 591706 times)

Offline high end hobo

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #960 on: September 06, 2017, 10:51:50 AM »
dos BA allowes free stop over
Only in London on the way to a domestic UK city when connecting from a long haul flight

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #961 on: September 17, 2017, 06:53:50 PM »
dos the companion from BA work also on Iberia?

Offline ludmila

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #962 on: September 17, 2017, 07:24:18 PM »
dos the companion from BA work also on Iberia?
No. Only on BA metal departing from USA.
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Offline slickdeal1

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #963 on: September 27, 2017, 06:46:39 PM »
How do I book EY F class Apartment from JFK-AUH; whenever I check on EY website, it shows no availability under guest seat. I tried calling AA, they also can't find availability.

Offline mmgfarb

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #964 on: September 27, 2017, 07:03:01 PM »
How do I book EY F class Apartment from JFK-AUH; whenever I check on EY website, it shows no availability under guest seat. I tried calling AA, they also can't find availability.
If EY isn't showing availability then you're out of luck. Even if they do, AA hasn't been able to book these for a little while now.
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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #965 on: October 01, 2017, 03:58:31 PM »
Booking Etihad Premium cabins with miles is no longer possible unless you’re within 30 days of departure date.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/28879304-post3230.html

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #966 on: November 06, 2017, 08:32:30 PM »
Cross-Post alert

For the second time in a few months for me AA does not see same availability as BA on IB flights. Is there some call center I should be calling or is that just a fact of life that IB flights even though available to be booked with BA cannot always be booked with AA?
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Offline Ehad

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #967 on: November 07, 2017, 11:25:29 AM »
anybody remembers which airline using miles was best on premium from NYC to the east cost? i vaguely remember it was a code share from JFK that Dan used to recommend with a lie flight and a real first class seat if iam not mistaken. thanks for your help

Online hvaces42

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #968 on: November 07, 2017, 12:37:06 PM »
anybody remembers which airline using miles was best on premium from NYC to the east cost? i vaguely remember it was a code share from JFK that Dan used to recommend with a lie flight and a real first class seat if iam not mistaken. thanks for your help
What are you talking about?
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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #969 on: November 07, 2017, 01:28:09 PM »
What are you talking about?
most probably the tam flight to Toronto that stopped a year ago

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #970 on: November 07, 2017, 01:38:07 PM »
anybody remembers which airline using miles was best on premium from NYC to the east cost? i vaguely remember it was a code share from JFK that Dan used to recommend with a lie flight and a real first class seat if iam not mistaken. thanks for your help
I think you meant NYC to the west coast.

LH on UA metal is 17.5K but availability is almost impossible

Offline dov613

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #971 on: December 06, 2017, 09:08:09 AM »
Does anyone know if it is possible to book AAnytime seats (not SAAver) via BA avios, and if so, how?

Offline mochjas

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #972 on: December 06, 2017, 09:26:10 AM »
Does anyone know if it is possible to book AAnytime seats (not SAAver) via BA avios, and if so, how?
not possible

Offline shimino1

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #973 on: January 04, 2018, 08:06:45 PM »
What's a good destination from Tel Aviv that would have married award availability on CX through HKG? Thanks
Accepting PM as well....

Offline ludmila

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #974 on: January 06, 2018, 02:15:38 AM »
not possible
+1, would have been great.
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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #975 on: January 24, 2018, 04:51:23 PM »
anyone know how many miles it is to upgrade from coach to business on Qatar?

Offline shimino1

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #976 on: January 25, 2018, 03:42:18 AM »
anyone know how many miles it is to upgrade from coach to business on Qatar?
I'm not sure but my good friend Google is THE MAN!!! when it comes to these things.

Offline lkwdlady

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #977 on: January 30, 2018, 06:23:10 PM »
Does anyone know how mch YQ is when booking RT on BA JFK-LHR in J through CX?

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #978 on: January 31, 2018, 12:12:18 PM »
Does anyone know how mch YQ is when booking RT on BA JFK-LHR in J through CX?
http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=1592.0

See Wiki. CX charges on all.
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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #979 on: January 31, 2018, 02:36:29 PM »
http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=1592.0

See Wiki. CX charges on all.

I know :( my question is how much it will be? I tried looking online but they won't show me because I don't have enough miles in my account but I want to make sure it makes senses before I transfer miles.

If someone has enough miles and wouldn't mind checking for me I would really appreciate it!