How to book American Airlines flights with British Airways Avios miles

A question from WenneTravel reader Ariel prompted this post today. Ariel was wondering how to use her Avios to book American Airlines flights. Below are step-by-step instructions.

Avios are the miles that one collects when flying British Airways. They’re also collectable via the Chase British Airways credit card, which earns 50,000 of them after $1,000 spend in 90 days. Since British Airways is part of the oneworld alliance, Avios can be used not just on British Airways but also on all of the oneworld partners, one of which is American.

Why Avios?

You might ask, why not just collect American miles? There are a few reasons it is advantageous to collect Avios in addition to AAdvantage miles.

1. Cost to acquire

Let’s compare the two signup offers for the British Airways card and American card:

Miles Received

Chase BA – 50,000

Citi AA – 50,000 (unpublished offer)

Spending Required

Chase BA - $1,000 in 3 months

Citi AA - $3,000 in 4 months

It is cheaper to earn the same number of miles on BA as AA. But beyond the signup offer it is also cheaper to earn Avios.

Earn Rate

Chase BA – 1.25 points/$

Citi AA – 1 point/$

Every dollar you spend is earning you 25% more Avios than AA miles.

2. Cost of flights

The Avios program is distance-based, whereas AAdvantage is zone-based. Even though they can both purchase the exact same flights, short-distance flights are much cheaper with Avios due to the distance-based cost. Here’s an example:

DC – Chicago (one-way)

Avios – 4,500 miles

AAdvantage – 12,500 miles

Chicago – Boston (one-way)

Avios – 7,500 miles

AAdvantage – 12,500 miles

Basically any flight under 1,150 miles will cost less with BA than with American. See the Avios award chart here for more details.

3. Ease of acquiring

AA credit card miles can only be earned with the Citi AAdvantage credit cards. But Avios are not limited to the Chase card. Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards also can be transferred to British Airways. So you have many ways to earn Avios.

Because Avios are distance-based, I recommend earning both AAdvantage miles and Avios, not just one or the other. But let’s say you want to use your Avios. Let’s look at how.

Using Avios

The British Airways website is not very good at finding all the flight possibilities for your route. I recommend using the American Airlines website to check for flights, and then using the BA site to purchase the flights. Let’s say I want to go from DC to Chicago, as Ariel wanted to. First I’ll go on www.aa.com and find the flights I want:

Make sure to check the “Redeem Miles” box before clicking “Search”. Here are the results of that search:

Any day that has “MileSAAver” availability, in either economy or first class, will have flights that can be purchased with Avios. Days that are greyed out have flights that can be purchased with AAdvantage miles, but not with Avios. I click the days I want and continue:

Any of these 12.5K nonstop flights can be purchased with Avios for 4,500 miles. Once I’ve found both flights I want, I go to www.britishairways.com:

Do not search here. This search will reveal only paid flights, and only on itineraries that include at least one British Airways flight. Instead, go to the top right and log in with your Avios account. You’ll be brought to this screen (I’ve cut off the right side with my personal account info):

Click “Spending Avios” on the left. You are brought to this screen now (I’ve zoomed out so you can see more of the screen):

Under “How do I book?”, click “Book flights with Avios”. You are brought here now:

Now on the right side you can type in where you want to go and when. Since you know your specific dates and airports, type them in. If you have multiple legs, search each leg separately as a one-way. It won’t cost any more to do this, and your search will be easier. You’ll also be able to cancel or change each leg individually. For this example we’ll just do a roundtrip between one city pair. Here are the results:

As you can see, all the same results pop up. Click the one you want and choose your return as well. The total screen will come up. It should be 9,000 Avios plus $5 ($2.50 in taxes each way):

Go to the payment page. It will allow you to enter your Avios number. You must decide now if you want your Avios or AAdvantage number on the reservation. Here are reasons why you might want your AAdvantage number:

1. You have the AA credit card and want the free checked bag and priority boarding
2. You have AA elite status

Here are reasons why you might want your Avios number:

1. You have BA elite status

If you do want your AA number, do not enter any number in the Executive Club number field. Leave it blank. Later we will add our AA number. If you want your Avios number, enter it in the Executive Club number field. Confirm the details and you’re done!

If you want to add your AAdvantage number

1. First, make a note of the confirmation number that BA has given you. It should be six characters long, and a mix of letters and numbers.

2. Go to www.checkmytrip.com and type it into the box on the top right along with your last name. A screen should come up with your flight info. On the bottom right you can click the “+” sign next to “view details”. In the drop down that appears will be your AA confirmation number. Take a note of this.

3. Then go to www.aa.com and click “My Trips/Check-In” towards the bottom of the screen (make sure you are logged out first). Enter your first and last name, and also your Record Locator. Your reservation should appear.

4. Scroll down to the “Passenger Summary” section and click “Add/Edit Passenger Information.” You can input your AAdvantage number here. It should now appear on your list of trips when you log in, and you should be able to do all of the things you normally do with a miles reservation on aa.com.

Some suggestions

1. Consider first class

Since you can only buy MileSAAver flights with Avios, sometimes you can’t buy an American Airlines economy seat if there aren’t any available at the MileSAAver level. But if there is a first class seat at the MileSAAver level, you can purchase that with Avios. Avios first class seats cost 3x the price of economy. So if DCA-ORD is 4,500 miles in economy, it will be 13,500 in first class. This may not seem like a great price compared to a 4,500-mile economy ticket, but for a flight like this let’s look at the price of available seats:

DCA-ORD

AA - Economy SAAver – not available

AA – Economy AANytime – 25,000

BA – Economy SAAver – not available

BA – First Class SAAver – 13,500

So of the seats available, you’re paying just over half in Avios for a first class seat as you would pay in AAdvantage miles for an economy seat.

2. Don’t fly on British Airways on Avios

Flying on British Airways itself with Avios is, counterintuitively, very expensive. BA levies heavy fuel surcharges on its mileage redemptions. If flying to London, it is better to book AA flight using AA miles. Just avois Avios and BA in general for London flights. If flying out of London, search on partner airlines using either AA or Avios and compare the price.