Helping you and your family save money on your vacations to Disney and beyond
A friend asked me if I could do a post on using British Airways Avios for flying on American Airlines flights. It may seem counterintuitive, but there are times when you want to use one type of airline mile to fly on one of its alliance partners. In this case, British Airways and American are Oneworld partners, and you can save some miles by using BA Avios in the right instances. Here’s how:
I recently just helped a client book a one way ticket for his family of four (two adults, one 2+ child, and one infant in arms) from Taipei, Taiwan to the East Coast all in first class. It’s an itinerary that seems to be impossible when you try on aa.com but with a little bit of work it’s easily doable. Even though the client only booked a one way award, I’m going to show you how to do this as a round trip.
I’m currently messing around with a couple of trips we want to take in the near to distant future, so I’ve been a bit too busy to post. Plus, it turns out taking care of a child is a lot of work. I did want to post quickly (albeit late) about the US Airways/American Airlines merger.
The short of it is this: US Airways and American will be merging sometime in the near future. What does that mean for points enthusiasts? Well, if past mergers are any indication, at some point you will be able to transfer US Airways miles to AA and vice versa, and ultimately your balances will likely be combined into one megabalance (though watch out for potential devaluations).
What this means is now is a good time to apply for the Barclay’s US Airways card, which currently is offering a sign up bonus of 35,000 miles after first purchase. There are other benefits, but essentially you can buy 35,000 miles for a dollar purchase. I just applied for one for my wife and she was instantly approved although I haven’t confirmed the bonus yet.
Anyway, this is a link to the flyertalk thread about the cards, and this is the application link that was working as of today. Be sure to do your own research if you’re going to pull the trigger of course. And if you’re new to this, feel free to check out my credit card application strategy series. Happy appy!