[Global Entry]

The first paragraph below is totally true, and I fully agree. And as you've noted, not all BA tickets have fuel surcharges.

For IB, I wouldn't use IB points to fly anything other than IB, of course. They raped their partner chart, and its just not feasible. The only reason to have an IB account for me is to potentially transfer Avios and fly IB itself, without fuel surcharges, never to fly partners. Remember that you need to have some IB Avios in your account to do a lot of things with IB, so find a way to dump a handful into your account to "activate" it.

Finally, and I imagine you know this, BA Award sucks for flights that aren't direct - if you need to connect, the awards charge each flight separately. Not a good answer for short haul-medium haul with a connection. You're paying twice.

(10-08-2014 08:20 AM)getdownonit Wrote:  

Avios can definitely be useful for short haul, as noted in GE's NYC-YUL example, but it's always worth it to find out about potential fuel surcharges, which are prevalent on many BA award bookings. BA doesn't charge massive fuel surcharges for every single BA or partner award, but people need to be aware of this possibility if they're looking at buying Avios in order to make an accurate calculation and an informed decision. There are so many important variables and cost calculations involved in the points game, and overlooking one during of your decision making process could end up costing you significant dough.

For example, IB recently devalued its partner award redemption chart big time, but still typically charges less in fuel surcharges than BA, so throw that in as another calculation if you're trying to maximize value. Since the value of avios is mostly in redeeming for otherwise expensive short haul flights, it's more likely that BA avios would be the better choice. There following post shows a good example of what you need to look out for with avios.

http://thepointsguy.com/2014/04/using-us...urcharges/

I was able to price out the same itinerary [JFK-LHR-HKG] on BritishAirways.com for 280,000 Avios and $1,614 in taxes and fees.

However, thanks to US Airways’ rules, it priced out at just 120,000 miles and $131 in taxes and fees!

(10-08-2014 08:37 AM)BallsDeep Wrote:  

(10-08-2014 01:39 AM)MaleDefined Wrote:  

^You are still missing the point.

Avios is really useful to book with partner airlines on short haul on low fuel surcharges. Moreover, even flying short haul the BA fuel surcharge still makes the flight a bargain when compared with buying the fare.

I'm not missing the point at all. Avios is not a good value, and shrewd travelers don't use it.

If you want to book short haul flights, go with LAN. Not only do you get better valuation than Avios on short haul flights, but there are no fuel surcharges. And fuel surcharges between countries (short haul or not) get expensive.

Balls, I appreciate your opinion but stating broadly that shrewd travelers don't use it is just false. I read flyer talk as well, and many people who are very familiar with the options use it. I agree that LAN is also a good program (and would say any distance based program might have some benefits). What we need to remember is that the reason to keep miles in different programs (airlines and cards with multiple transfer partners) is that there are sweet spots and that's what we're after. We want to have the ability to play the arb depending on a trip which we may not have arranged and may not know we're going to take. If I dump all my miles into Avios, and then want to get an award LAX to HKG, one way, I'm fucked. However, if I've diversified with miles into AA, then I have a pretty good cost efficient way to get a J or an F trip. Similarly if I just relied on my USA miles, I'd be stuck with a useless RT award and be wasting half the miles.

I have miles with all three alliances, to a different degree. I also have Starwood miles and I just applied for Chase Ink Plus, which I'll probably use to book Korean Airline awards tickets to HKG from LAX. Again, its about finding the arb, the sweet spot for each program.

Guys, opinions can differ, so lets all (me as well) tone down the rhetoric and diatribe.

I welcome your contributions, Balls and GetDown. Thanks for weighing in.