Via Milepoint, in addition to already adding online searches of Alaska Airlines award space, the American AAdvantage website has also added the ability to search British Airways and Hawaiian as well.
Here’s a search of first class awards from Washington Dulles to London, one-way, which shows space on BA pretty much every day. DC isn’t a huge premium market, I see Air France as “O9” many days of the week (wide open business class awards, great for redeeming Delta miles). BA awards are pretty wide open as well.
The key here of course is the taxes and fees, British Airways fuel surcharges are a killer, the website shows taxes and fees available for different itineraries as being between $2.50 and $700, the former being an American Airlines redemption and the latter being about what you’ll pay on BA. Ouch.
Still, $700 plus miles for a first class award that’s really available will be useful to some, and putting the information clearly online is a huge step forward in transparency.
Here’s a snapshot of Hawaiian Airlines space bookable on the website, coach from Los Angeles to Honolulu.
I especially like the website showing choices of airlines, in this case three (American/Alaska/Hawaiian). And that the partner awards come up as part of the award calendar.
When American finally gets the rest of their partners online this functionality is going to be huge.
Wow. Very useful.
Can BA Avios be redeemed for Hawaiian flights as an AA partner?
I know you can do so on Alaska but haven’t heard about Hawaiian.
I can’t find any direct flights during the Olympics (July 26-August 7) to/from IAD/LHR on this site. I’ve got tons of BA miles and need 3 tickets so used US Airways miles with a stopover in Brussels/Vienna. Help!
@Mary Cooke you have tickets for 3 passengers to London during the Olympics using US Airways — be happy!! 🙂
Woohoo!!!!! Hope to see all of the other partners available online soon. Sounds like AA was listening to our complaints in their survey on flyertalk a while back!
It would be nice to get this information from American where as lowly Platinum I’m moving towards 6 million miles
On the other hand thankfully we have Gary Leff:)
Looks like the American folks kept their promise
I can get a break searching the awful Qantas and BA websites if there will be reasonable accuracy
@Curtis a year ago Maya Leibman said this functionality was a priority for them, and she’s since been made the airline’s CTO!
This is seriously useful. Thank you so much Gary! I’ve been wanting to go to either the Maldives or Bora Bora and both BA and HA are actually showing availability! My only complain is that the taxes on BA are seriously ridiculous – $1,468.20 to fly from JFK to MLE via LGW? Come on?! Even though I admit that $1400+ in taxes are cheap compared to a revenue ticket in business on BA, those surcharge fees are still crazy compared to flying to Bora Bora on HA. Gary, do you know if there’s any chance of Etihad showing such availability on AA as well?
@Gavin I expect that EVENTUALLY AA will be trying to get all their partners online
Just thought I’d add, that if you DON’T want to pay those fuel surcharges, you can check “AA, American Eagle and AmericanConnection” only, at the bottom of the “Find Flights” page. Then it will only display the surcharge free AA flights. Otherwise, you will have to slog thru all of those BA flights, which greatly outnumber the AA offerings, at least in FC as of today.
It’s great to see this improvement on the AA site, and I sure hope Iberia, Cathay Pacific, LAN and JAL are up there soon too, as well as the other partners. United has made great strides in displaying partner flights, and AA has some catching up to do.
That is great news. Thanks Gary!
This is not good at all. I do not want the rank and file to have better access to the partner awards. Seriously not cool.
Makes me miss nwa.com.
You can book American metal on AA.com, you can book BA metal on AA.com. But you cannot book AA+BA yet. Not without paying for an additional award. At least I can’t.
It’s my understanding I am allowed to book an American metal award to LHR, then for no more mileage, add a BA flight to a mainland Europe city. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but when I try to do this on AA.com, it will let me do it alright. But it charges me an additional 20K miles for the BA metal segment.
This is the case whether I am trying outbound or return. And whether I try to book it as a multi-city, or straight point to point award. Maybe American just hasn’t got this part of the booking process up and running yet? Or do they not want to advertise this possibility to those who don’t already know about it?
When you book these tickets, can you still bring your young child (he’s 14 months) at no additional cost? Even when flying first or business class? Thanks for all of the great info!
Haven’t you heard? There’s a new IATA rule forbidding children under 8 in First at all times. Also no children under 6 in Business on flights longer than 3 hours. :>)
I almost forgot, there is an exemption for MommyPoints and Little C in the new regulations…..