More Flights for Using American AAdvantage Miles to Europe Without Fuel Surcharges

by Gary Leff

airberlin is a oneworld airline, partner of American and British Airways, that’s largely controlled by UAE-based Etihad.

They have a great business class product for long haul travel, and they do not add fuel surcharges to their fares. That means when redeeming miles, even British Airways miles for travel across the Atlantic, there are no fuel surcharges.

Back in November they announced new service between Boston, Dallas, and San Francisco and its hub at Dusseldorf, Germany. And award availability was fantastic..

Unfortunately they pulled the Dallas service before it began. So I’m a little bit skeptical of what new route announcements from airberlin mean.

However, via Dan R., airberlin is expanding service between Germany and both the US and Carribean.

Airberlin will dramatically expand its range of long-haul flights this coming winter (2016/17). Germany’s second-largest airline will base an additional type A330-200 aircraft at Berlin Tegel, with 19 seats in the exclusive FullFlat Business Class section and 271 Economy Class seats, including 48 XL seats, which offer around 20 percent more legroom.

This winter airberlin will:

  • Grow Berlin – Miami from 2 to 4 flights a week

  • Grow Berlin – New York JFK from 6 to 7 flights a week

  • Grow Berlin – Chicago from 4 to 5 flights a week

  • Resume Los Angeles – Berlin year-round service

airberlin already flies from Chicago, Fort Myers, Miami, New York, and Los Angeles.

In addition, November 2 airberlin will commence three times weekly Dusseldorf-Cancun, up from twice weekly last winter. They’ll also resume Berlin – Punta Cana, Dominican Republic flying Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. airberlin will add one additional Cuba flight, and one additional Curacao flight as well.

They have a strong business class product which I wouldn’t hesitate to fly.

airberlin award space isn’t reliably searchable at aa.com. You can search for it on the British Airways website and the Qantas frequent flyer site, then call American if using AAdvantage miles.

American charges 57,500 miles each way for business class, and includes flights in the US to the connect to your airberlin flight, and also on airberlin (or other partner airline) beyond Dusseldorf to other destinations in Europe. For additional miles you can even connect in Europe to destinations in other regions.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. I find the AB J product perfectly fine, and agree that it’s great to have more options across the pond.

    That said, there is a pretty long running thread on FT about people having major issues with booking AB awards, from no space to phantom space and almost no connecting space onward from AB hubs. Have you seen anything on this front when working with award booking clients or such?

  2. @CW lining up connecting space can be a challenge, the route network is limited, so I often find needing to use BA/IB for that. Phantom space has been an issue in the past, but hardly unique to this airline. So I find it’s always helpful to confirm space before banking on something.

  6. That’s strange…I swear I was able to see AB award space on AA.com last year.
    Did something happen to AA’s website?

  9. Agree with Charlie, when did AB flights become unsearchable on aa.com? I booked them over christmas and had no trouble finding any route they flew. Also able to find them on the site currently.

  11. regarding other comments on it being searchable on AA’s site; yes it is, but I’ve encountered it to be very unreliable; BA showing award space while AA does not (and yes it truly existed); so it’s hit & miss with AA in my experience.

  12. @Gary, nitpicking here, but the original article did say “AB award space isn’t searchable on aa.com”…you added the qualifier “reliably” after the fact, which is where the confusion came from.

  13. I find AB searches on American’s website to be unreliable. I always use Qantas to find my flights,
    then I call AA.

  14. @Graham I added it within seconds of hitting publish (as I re-read the post) and before your comment did you view the post via RSS, which may have had a lag in updating, or email? Apologies for the confusion!

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