Yesterday I wrote about an exciting promotion to transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to British Airways for a 40% bonus. In that post, I mentioned that a goal of mine in the coming year is to fly British Airways First Class. Shortly after writing that post I decided to look into the best way of accomplishing that goal. Specifically, should I book British Airways First Class with Avios or AAdvantage miles?
Booking British Airways First Class With Avios
Obviously one of the easiest ways to book British Airways First Class is with the airlines points currency; Avios. British Airways uses a distance based award chart which means booking between London and New York costs less than between London and Los Angeles. So, for starters, I wanted to compare how much each city pairing would cost. What I found is that flying to the east cost (New York) cost just 68,000 Avios while flying to the West Coast (Los Angles) cost 85,000 Avios.
In fact, any flights between 3,000 and 4,000 miles cost 68,000 Avios for an off-peak award.
While any flights between 4,001 and 5,000 miles cost 85,000 Avios.
Apparently British Airways considers Los Angles to be within 5,000 miles from London even though I find that it’s actually about 5,400 miles.
Either way, when booking British Airways First Class you must also pay about $500 in fuel surcharges and fees. That is a lot of money to pay in addition to the miles, but unfortunately that’s common when booking British Airways transatlantic awards.
Booking British Airways First Class With AAdvantage Miles
American Airlines appears to charge a flat milage rate for award bookings between London and the United States. In all of my searches I found mile sAAver awards between London and US cities cost 85,000 miles.
In the London to Chicago example you would have to pay 85,000 AAdvantage miles and $512.71 for a British Airways First Class ticket. That’s $14 and 17,000 miles more than if you booked directly with British Airways.
In the Los Angles example you’d pay the same 85,000 miles, but have to pay an additional $15 in fees. In both examples it’s best to book directly with British Airways Avios.
Transferring American Express Points With A 40% Bonus
It becomes much cheaper to book British Airways Avios if you start with Amex points. In that case you only need to use 61,000 American Express points to fly between London and Los Angeles. Likewise, you only need to use 49,000 Amex MR points to fly between London and Chicago.
Considering cash prices on either city paring often go for well over $10,000 that represents exceptional value in my opinion. British Airways First Class often goes for $14,000 between London and Los Angeles. That means you’d be getting about $0.23 of value from your hard-earned Membership Rewards points. Between London and Chicago the cost of the ticket is about $11,000. Again, for that redemption you’d be getting about $0.23 of value from your MR points.
Either way, using Membership Rewards points to book British Airways First Class through British Airways Executive Club Avios represents great value.
Final Thoughts
Well, here’s the part of the post when I go against everything I’ve just said! While I think booking British Airways First Class with Membership Rewards points is a steal, I don’t know if I’d do it. That’s because I’d much rather transfer MR points to Singapore Airlines and fly Singapore Airlines’ Suites across the Atlantic.
I’ve heard repeatedly that British Airways First Class is essentially a great business class product. On the other hand, Singapore Airlines’ Suites Class is a world-class First Class product. Considering you can book Singapore Airlines Suites from New York to Frankfurt for just 76,000 Membership Rewards points. Personally, I’d rather spend a few extra points to fly a far superior product. However in this case, I’m going to end up booking BA First because I want to review it badly.
