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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 591840 times)

Offline HoKo

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1080 on: January 20, 2022, 10:46:27 AM »
the week of april 24. The cheapest day works.

i took a look but im not seeing anything much cheaper than that.

it's actually not that bad of a price, 10K Avios is worth $150 if you value them at 1.5CPP. So you're effectively paying $150+223 = $373

Offline HoKo

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1081 on: January 20, 2022, 11:13:33 AM »
the week of april 24. The cheapest day works.

Another option is to just book a cash ticket on a LCC...You can get a nonstop flight on Wizz for a whopping $46!




Offline dsprod

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1082 on: January 23, 2022, 06:35:51 AM »
but no luggage...

Offline amexRATmoiser

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1083 on: January 23, 2022, 09:31:04 AM »
Anyone else having issues transferring from amex to ey? The points get deducted but then promptly refunded every time I try. Amex rep said it's a problem on etihads side and Etihad said they have no idea and can't help. I wanted to book jfk-lax on AA flagship first for 25k ey but ended up having to book on ba for 51.5k. this was my first time attempting an ey transfer, is this a known issue?

Offline HoKo

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1084 on: January 23, 2022, 11:59:09 AM »
but no luggage...

You need to think about this from a holistic perspective - even if you have to pay a bag fee the base fare is so cheap that it will still end up being a very reasonable total price.

Offline DansDealsLover

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1085 on: January 30, 2022, 11:42:51 PM »
Any way to get an award flight on BA metal via LHR with lower taxes? Even with AA awards the taxes are crazy high. I’m trying to book EWR to MAN (AA doesn’t fly from EWR) in business.

Offline ad120

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1086 on: January 31, 2022, 12:07:52 PM »
Any way to get an award flight on BA metal via LHR with lower taxes? Even with AA awards the taxes are crazy high. I’m trying to book EWR to MAN (AA doesn’t fly from EWR) in business.
+1
What is the best way to book LHR to NYC on BA in J using amex points?

Offline DansDealsLover

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1087 on: January 31, 2022, 02:35:16 PM »
+1
What is the best way to book LHR to NYC on BA in J using amex points?
If you don’t need to fly on a BA operated flight, you can fly with AA where taxes are much lower and book with Avios

Offline ad120

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1088 on: January 31, 2022, 02:48:07 PM »
If you don’t need to fly on a BA operated flight, you can fly with AA where taxes are much lower and book with Avios
Only BA flights available.

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1089 on: April 05, 2022, 11:47:00 PM »
Do I have this right? Qantas you can’t search for miles tickets without paying joining fee and Qatar you can’t search if you don’t have enough miles for the trip you’re trying to search?

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1090 on: April 05, 2022, 11:47:40 PM »
What’s best method of getting to Australia from us? Assuming Qantas

Offline Samy1716

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1091 on: May 22, 2022, 12:51:46 AM »
I want to book an award flight from the US to Venice, I see that Qantas has availabilty with AA direct for 50k round trip, I can not see how much I will need to pay for the taxes and fees... only once I tranfer my points to Qantas and checkout, does anyone know how much the taxes and fees are for such a flight?

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1092 on: May 22, 2022, 11:05:31 AM »
I want to book an award flight from the US to Venice, I see that Qantas has availabilty with AA direct for 50k round trip, I can not see how much I will need to pay for the taxes and fees... only once I tranfer my points to Qantas and checkout, does anyone know how much the taxes and fees are for such a flight?

You can check ITA Matrix to get an idea.

Offline Samy1716

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1093 on: May 22, 2022, 11:05:40 PM »
I am not familiar with it, can you elabarate?

Offline HoKo

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1095 on: August 13, 2022, 11:42:56 PM »
Do I have this right? Qantas you can’t search for miles tickets without paying joining fee and Qatar you can’t search if you don’t have enough miles for the trip you’re trying to search?
Qantas doesn't have a fee to search.

Offline ethana

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1096 on: February 16, 2023, 07:37:57 PM »
AA is showing websaver availibility in business JFK-LHR. BA is not showing that availibility. how would i book? I dont have enough AA miles

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1097 on: May 16, 2023, 11:49:12 AM »
Is there a better option than avios for booking AA to chicago?

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1098 on: May 16, 2023, 11:49:35 AM »
AA is showing websaver availibility in business JFK-LHR. BA is not showing that availibility. how would i book? I dont have enough AA miles

Call BA

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Re: One World Award Search Tips
« Reply #1099 on: May 16, 2023, 12:07:45 PM »
AA is showing websaver availibility in business JFK-LHR. BA is not showing that availibility. how would i book? I dont have enough AA miles

Just because AA is showing web saver availability does not necessarily mean that British Airways has access to that space