Ameican Express Membership Rewards is offering a 35% bonus on transfers to British Airways Avios through June 7.
Avios are most useful for short-haul non-stop flights (longer flights cost more points). And where there’s a fuel surcharge on a paid ticket British Airways adds that to the fees on a paid ticket.
For transatlantic travel there’s savings in flying Air Berlin (no fuel surcharges) or Aer Lingus (very low charges) rather than flying British Airways or American. There are no fuel surcharges on domestic US travel or flights to and from South America on American or LAN.
(HT: Rob on Milepoint)
So when will we see some Delta SkyMiles bonus offered on transfers of AX Membership Miles to them, since they are so entangled and ‘such good partners’? Been a long time since there was a SkyMiles offer!
Get me Aeroplan please; with a bonus, the exchange to US is better.
so I can get 1:1 Amex to AA
Flying business class. How would you compare the
service etc. on AIR BERLIN compared TO B.A.
if BA is a 10 what is A.B.??
We haven’t seen anything with transfers to Delta since 2011…
Awesome! I have been waiting for this!
I tested out a few fares from msp to see how many avios they cost. Ord and NYC calculated fine but DC, LAX, and SYR did not. Are those cities unbookable with Avios?
Tanks for the head’s up.
DC, LAX, and SYR definitely bookable! I like Wandering Aramean’s tool for calculating expected Avios cost – wandr.me/Avios-Calculator.aspx
Thanks!
Corky, the best deals (need less miles then AA wants usually) is only on Non-Stops , means unless you live in an AA Hub city, the only possible good deals would be to AA Hubs. Thats why ORD & JFK works out of MSP
Thats why say a MSP-SAN which routes MSP-DFW-SAN is 17,500 1 way.You are paying for a MSP-DFW tkt and then a DFW-SAN tkt. While it would only be 12,500 using AA miles
Now if you were only interested in flying to DFW it would cost you 7500 with BA or 12,500 with AA
Thanks, Gary. I’d been waiting for this one since picking up the 50K PRG a couple months ago…over to BA they go.
Thanks Craz. My main use for these would be to get to ORD to take advantage of the cheap fares you can get out of ORD that you can’t get out of MSP, like the Istanbul tickets for $550. So they should prove useful.
Are there fuel charges on Finnair?
@Gary Steiger – yes, JFK-HEL YQ is ~ US$430 roundtrip
Considering that a dollar on BA credit card equals 1.25 miles this is really only a 10% bonus……hardly something to get excited about unless a companion ticket needs mileage top off……….
I’m a law student with about 56k MR miles. I need to cancel my PRG card this summer before I get charged a membership fee. Would you recommend this promotion as the best method of maximizing points? I’m hoping to do a points only round-the-world excursion next summer as my post-bar trip.