topic Re: British Airways Expensive Points in Credit Cards

British Airways Expensive Points

NRB525 — Sun, 23 May 2021 14:36:16 GMT

In the discussions about the value of MR and UR points, and even for Diners Club points, British Airways is touted as an excellent use of points for US domestic flights, and many other types of flights.

Great, thinks I over the years, I'll use MR points for a flight to or from Hawaii on Alaska Airlines.

But you have to call London to see if BA has availability to book any Alaska flights, and the call staff works London hours only, so it might take a couple tries to get them at a desk.

Turns out, BA has zero availability on Alaska on the days in November we will be transiting to and from Hawaii. Took ten minutes on the phone to figure that out.

Got my cellphone bill, and my AT&T rate to call London from the US is a cool $3 per minute. Tack on federal taxes and it was a $43 cost to find out I couldn't use MR points through BA to Alaska this time.

In the arguments whether points have value, or cash back is better, the transaction costs of actually using the points needs to be factored in. Delta and United are easy transfers from MR and UR, respectively, and so going forward that will be my default valuation for those points, about 1.2c for airline. Hyatt still has some good values, typically 1.7c, sometimes ( rarely ) more.

But I don't think I will be calling overseas airlines to get skunked on points usage.

Re: British Airways Expensive Points

Brian_Earl_Spilner — Sun, 23 May 2021 14:53:07 GMT

That can be said about points in general. The majority of people don't want, or know how, to jump through hoops to get maximum valuation. Everyone is quick to throw out valuations when a newbie asks if it's right for them, but nobody lays out what's actually involved to get them. And when they do, it usually becomes very clear whether it's worth the time and effort to the person asking the question.

Re: British Airways Expensive Points

ChargedUp — Sun, 23 May 2021 15:56:26 GMT

Did you try their US toll free number?

Re: British Airways Expensive Points

Anonymous — Sun, 23 May 2021 23:02:46 GMT

@ChargedUp wrote:
Did you try their US toll free number?

And if you need to call abroad, check on international plans. Verizon has one for $11.25 a month that has free calling to the UK (and many other countries). You can add and remove the next day and get it prorated. Too late now, but I assume AT&T has something similar.

Re: British Airways Expensive Points

notmyrealname23 — Mon, 24 May 2021 04:06:29 GMT

@ChargedUp wrote:
Did you try their US toll free number?

Or the BA website? Alaska's bookable there, if there's availability.

Re: British Airways Expensive Points

blackfines1 — Mon, 24 May 2021 06:39:11 GMT

Next time use voip , like google voice , magic jack, vonage, lingo and others .... free call to US and 0.001 to call international

Re: British Airways Expensive Points

NRB525 — Mon, 24 May 2021 16:16:43 GMT

@ChargedUp wrote:
Did you try their US toll free number?

Fair point. I was taking the Customer Service pages of the BA website that if I wasn't dealing with a specific purchased ticket, in order to apply points through the Executive Club, then I needed to call London.

Re: British Airways Expensive Points

NRB525 — Mon, 24 May 2021 16:20:15 GMT

@notmyrealname23 wrote:
@ChargedUp wrote:
Did you try their US toll free number?
Or the BA website? Alaska's bookable there, if there's availability.

Ok, on further review, yes BA has some availability of Alaska flights, just not Pacific Northwest to Hawaii destinations. "BA and Partners do not fly this route".

Getting a little more creative, like flights to Boise or Salt Lake City, yeah, those turn up. So I guess it's a question of managing expectations

I had not previously explored more arcane connections, now will keep that in mind for ski trips since beach vacations are difficult to book this way.

Re: British Airways Expensive Points

Anonymous — Mon, 24 May 2021 16:47:25 GMT

As someone who resides full time in the States i don't think I would have ever even considered BA, as I would assume "domestic" means in the UK. Granted most Airlines these days have partner programs that allows a broader range of point usage/redemption, yet it just seems weird for me to think of BA for any type of domestic travel here.

That said it would be useful if I was a UK resident on holiday in the states and had enough points built up to get a free flight to a neighboring state.

Re: British Airways Expensive Points

Anonymous — Mon, 24 May 2021 18:23:20 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
As someone who resides full time in the States i don't think I would have ever even considered BA, as I would assume "domestic" means in the UK. Granted most Airlines these days have partner programs that allows a broader range of point usage/redemption, yet it just seems weird for me to think of BA for any type of domestic travel here.

That said it would be useful if I was a UK resident on holiday in the states and had enough points built up to get a free flight to a neighboring state.

On of the common US uses of BA points (Avios) was on domestic American Airlines flights. At various times, with distance based awards, the miles needed on an AA domestic flight was less with Avios than with AA miles.

Re: British Airways Expensive Points

Loquat — Mon, 24 May 2021 21:24:49 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
As someone who resides full time in the States i don't think I would have ever even considered BA, as I would assume "domestic" means in the UK. Granted most Airlines these days have partner programs that allows a broader range of point usage/redemption, yet it just seems weird for me to think of BA for any type of domestic travel here.

That said it would be useful if I was a UK resident on holiday in the states and had enough points built up to get a free flight to a neighboring state.

On of the common US uses of BA points (Avios) was on domestic American Airlines flights. At various times, with distance based awards, the miles needed on an AA domestic flight was less with Avios than with AA miles.

Those were the good days. It seems like its hard to find decent BA to AA use anymore (even pre-pandemic). Over the past year or so AA has ramped up their Web Special offerings and dialed back big time (in my experience) on partner award availability. I miss the days of taking advantage of the MR to BA bonus...now I have very little use for than specific points transfer.