How to Use British Airways Avios To Generate Huge Savings On American Airlines Flights

If a round-trip flight from New York to Montreal for 9,000 miles – or from New York to Miami for 15,000 miles – seems too good to be true, you should familiarize yourself with British Airways “avios” (British for “miles”?).  These redemption rates aren’t short-term promotions or off-season specials; they’re the standard redemption rates under BA’s distance-based award chart, which yields incredible results for short and medium-distance flights.  And what makes this incredible award chart useful for those of us who aren’t puddle-hopping around Great Britain is that BA avios can be redeemed on BA’s Oneworld partner airlines, including American Airlines.  But here’s the real kicker: there’s a good chance you already have lots of avios (or access to lots of avios) because each of the three major flexible points currencies – Membership Rewards points, Chase Ultimate Rewards points, and Starwood Starpoints – can be transferred into BA avios!

To break this down, let’s start with the BA award chart:

As you can see, redemption rates are tied to a series of zones; the lower the zone number, the shorter the flight.  BA is notorious for those “additional charges” (fuel surcharges) in the right-hand column on transatlantic flights, but no fuel surcharges are imposed on fares within North America.

Believe it or not, the BA website doesn’t actually disclose the distance ranges for each zone, but this chart, which was published by BA’s sister airline (Iberia), accurately reflects the distance range for each BA zone:

The one-way cost of a flight is located in the “Blue Class” column.  So flights up to 650 miles (like New York to Montreal) are only 4,500 avios each way, or 9,000 avios round trip.  Flights between 651 and 1,151 miles (like New York to Miami) will run you just 7,500 avios each way, or 15,000 avios round trip.  The irony here is that either flight would cost 25,000 AAdvantage miles if booked directly through American, so a person with a Starwood Preferred Guest card who was interested in these American Airlines flights would be better off converting their Starpoints into BA Avios than American AAdvantage miles!  To help you determine the price, in avios, of any given flight, BA actually offers a very helpful “avios calculator” on its website.

Now, determining how many avios a given flight will cost is one thing, but you also need to determine whether there is award space available for the flight you’re interested in.  Fortunately, BA’s website displays award availability on partner airlines, so you can simply click on “Spending Avios” under the “Executive Club” tab on BA’s home page, and then click the link to “Book flights with Avios.”  The only snag here is that you have to be logged into a BA Executive Club account before you can use the award search tool, so you’ll have to create an account (it’s free) if you don’t already have one.  If you’re looking to redeem your avios on an American flight, an imperfect but nevertheless useful alternative is searching award availability on American’s website: generally, any flight that has “MileSAAver” availability will be available for partner redemption.

The BA Executive Club program is a prime example of why I advocate for flexible points currencies: each frequent flyer program is unique, and the more programs you can access with your points, the better.  It bears repeating that American Express Membership  Rewards points and Chase Ultimate Rewards points transfer instantly into BA avios at a 1 to 1 ratio, and Starwood Starpoints transfer at a 1 to 1.25 ratio when transferred in batches of 20,000 – in other words, 20,000 Starpoints = 25,000 BA avios (this transfer is not instant, however).  The best credit cards for each respective points currency are the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, and the Starwood Preferred Guest card, but for more information about flexible point currencies and the best ways to earn them, check out this post.

Please note that I may receive a referral credit if you choose to apply for a credit card through the links contained in this post.  As always, referral links are only provided when they direct you to the best available offer.  If you plan to apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, please consider applying through this creditcards.com Travel Rewards Credit Cards link (click to page 2), which also directs you to the best offer for the card and also generates a commission for me if you are approved.