Update 5/6/11: The 100k mile card promotion is now expired. The information on using British Airways miles should still be accurate.
First, a quick reminder that the British Airways 100,000 mile promotion mentioned previously is scheduled to expire in less than two weeks on May 6th. To recap, the Chase British Airways Visa Signature card (expired) is offering 50,000 British Airways (BA) Executive Club miles for new cardmembers with first purchase, and another 50,000 BA miles after spending $2,500 within 3 months of opening, for a total of 100,000 miles.
There are many options on how to spend these points, for example we spent them on business class tickets to London and Rome. But to show the basic value of this offer, I looked into how to use British Airways miles to book award travel on American Airlines, their partner in the US. If American Airlines has a domestic award seat available in their “MileSAAver” category, then in general you can book it with British Air miles. A flight within the continental US costs 25,000 BA miles plus $5, with no fuel surcharges. (Other combinations of less miles and more cash are available, see below.)
If your flight is a direct flight with no stopovers, you can search and book an award online at BritishAirways.com. On the site, go to “Spending BA Miles” and then “Book with partner airlines” and then “Make a reward booking”. They always try to find BA flights first, but once you search for domestic flights, you’ll see this option to include partner airlines.
Here is a screenshot of an award I found from Los Angeles to Dallas/Ft. Worth for 25,000 miles + $5:
(click to enlarge)
Note that I can see the availability even if I don’t have enough miles to actually book it yet. Alternatively, you can book an American Airlines flight from the continental US to Hawaii for 35,000 + $5. Here is an award I found from Los Angeles to Honolulu during the summer for that amount:
(click to enlarge)
Of course, it’s better if you can book ahead of time for the best availability. If your flight has a stopover, you might want to look for award availability on the American Airlines website first and then call British Airways to book the award flight. Since you can’t find the airfare online through their search system, you can try asking them to waive their phone booking fee. Thus, with the 100,000 miles from this offer (plus $20 in fees), you could by four domestic round-trip tickets in the lower 48, or nearly three round trip tickets to Hawaii.
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One nice feature is the fact that BA allows you to book stopovers with no extra charge (money or miles). For example, we are flying Philly to Key West (via Miami) and staying 2 days, then Key West to Orlando (via Miami) and staying 2 days, and then Orlando to Philadelphia (via Miami) for 25K/ticket.
Anyone else having trouble applying for the offer? I already have a Chase account, and when I enter the userID & pw I get redirection error (this happens in Firefox, IE, and Chrome).
After multiple attempts, I was able to apply with IE. You can disregard my message above.
How can I find out if I can use the miles to fly to India with BA or any other partner airlines?
It a nice offer, but the thing i hate about those mileage offer is their “mile”. It is not the same measurement we used. From los angeles to dallas is only 1400 mile but in their “mile” needs 25k. It will be much easier if it the same.
esoul? u never booked an award travel ticket before?
The ‘norm’ minimum for any trip is 25K. Sometimes they have lower amounts but as mentioned above, the ‘norm’ minimum is 25K
yes xmasy you correct
“A flight within the continental US costs 25,000 BA miles plus $5”
first time i read that i missed it.
Any of you participate in the recent 100,000 miles (110,000 with new card member bonus) promotion for the Capital One Venture card? I was shocked at how amazing this deal was. $1,000 in spending = $112,000 Venture rewards = $1,120 to use towards ANY travel expenses. The redemption was surprisingly easy too–especially if you charge your travel expenses to the card. You just select the travel expenditures you want reimbursed and they credit your account in 5-7 days. Pretty neat!
@esoul: For most mileage programs (if not all), you earn 1 mile for every mile you travel. So if you traveled from LA to Dallas, you would earn 1400 miles (they would use the exact mileage that the plane travels). So the miles aren’t completely arbitrary.
@Pedro: My friend did the Venture Card promo. I so wish I heard about it sooner. The one that you are referring was the Match My Miles promotion. They would give you 1 mile for every mile you had in another mileage program ( up to 100,000) + the 10k bonus miles. You could use the 110,000 miles for a $1,100 credit on you account for any travel (hotels, flights, etc.). The match portion is expired now though so you just get the 10k miles equivalent to $100.
This deal sounds great, but I have one concern: are the miles useable for ANY flight on AA, or are there black out dates?
Can the free companion ticket after spending $30K be used for travek on AA?
Chip- The small print on the companion ticket says you have to pay “full fare” , the companion has to be booked at the same time on the same flight, and it has to be on a BA flight.
I’m honestly surprised – I got approved, despite this being my third Chase credit card (they’ve refused me before for having “too many” of their cards).
Now to have my wife apply as well. 🙂
Rather surprisingly, no one has mentioned that this card has an immediate, non-waived annual fee of $95.
Don’t forgot about other OneWorld partners like Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific – I find much more bang for the buck using the miles for International travel.
I just redeemed the entire 100k for a business class ticket from JFK to BKK via HKG on Cathay Pacific – all in for approximately $230 in fees.
Wow, another reason I love MyMoneyBlog
I signed up for this card after I saw it described here. I have gotten the first 50,000 miles deposited into my new British Airways frequent flyer account, but am still waiting on the second 50,000 because I haven’t spent $2,500 yet. However, I am doubting if I will ever be able to use these miles. I went to the BA site and tried to search for a flight to use the miles and I couldn’t find a single flight anywhere for which it would let me redeem the miles. (Yes, I was including partner airlines in the search.) I live in Pittsburgh, PA, and selected numerous destinations in the USA, on numerous dates over the next few months and couldn’t find a single flight!
As noted above, if you’re looking for any route that doesn’t have a direct nonstop flight out of your city (Pittsburgh) on American, you can still book it but you have to call in and do it by phone. Their online system on partner flights doesn’t have the capability currently to find all flight connections. I know that AA serves Pittsburgh, so I’m sure you can find something with a connection to where you want to go.
Jonathan, thanks for the response. I missed the point about having to call in if the destination isn’t a non-stop. However, after I called in and spent 15 minutes with a rep trying to find ANY flight out of Pittsburgh on multiple trip dates I was told there were none every time. And when I go to the American Airline site frequently flyer program they show up as available. So for some reason they aren’t qualifying as part of the British Airways partner program. The rep suggested I just keep calling back in because she saw all the flights had seats available for purchase with case, and as it gets closer to the flight date they may open up more seats for mile redemption if they aren’t sold.
Anybody have luck booking flights? I fly out of SFO and it seems the only flights I find are a year out. Is that pretty normal? I don’t really like planning that far in advance. Does anybody know what the cancelation fees are?
Terrible offer. I have my 100,000 miles, but am facing $1200 in surcharges for a flight from the West Coast to Western Europe and back. None of the biz class seats are available. Wish I had my $100 annual fee back. British Airways is truly disappointing.
Also, if I make a booking, I’ll have to pay $30+ each way to be able to pick my seat on board. Sheesh.
I’ll take the miles if you don’t want them! 100k miles will get you to South America on LAN Airlines, as well to Asia on Cathay Pacific, and finally within the US on American all with no fuel surcharges.
50,00 BA miles got us round trip from US to Peking on AA for about $420 – awesome! This was a really hot deal….used the Dollar coins, Amazon Webpay and a college tuition to really bulk up on the miles quickly.
@Chip: Why did you even bother writing that when you knew it was completely false? 50,000 miles do not get you to China, even on a slow boat!
Paul,
It is quite true – try it yourself, but you have to book on AA through BA. If you book BA or Cathay, it is 100K needed for the China leg.
BA seems to have gotten rid of that button for including partners and I can’t get an American flight that I want to show up for rewards (it’s direct, BA is only offering connections on their flights). Is there any way around this?
Used this offer for 2 round trip tickets from Chicago to Hawaii for a grand total of $150 (50 for flights and 95$ annual fee) for $1900 in tickets (as of right now).
Was surprised we only had to look about 8 months out to find the flights.
Was a great deal.
“Jonathan Says:
August 13th, 2011 at 12:12 am
I’ll take the miles if you don’t want them! 100k miles will get you to South America on LAN Airlines, as well to Asia on Cathay Pacific, and finally within the US on American all with no fuel surcharges.”
I am not sure if trading is allowed, but I have 75k miles that I can’t seem to use for anything at all !!
Just booked my tickets using this deal. Trying to find flights online was difficult and made us pretty frustrated. Came back to this article and saw the guidance about calling calling customer service to help book. It seems the fees are higher for international flights but I am still happy with the deal we got. For $292 in fees (+$95 annual fee for the card) we got 2 tickets on AA, Seattle to Jamaica in February, first class on the way there, economy on the way home. No complaints here.
@Shaun, did you call BA customer service to book the AA flight? Online at BA is a huge pain.
We want to go to Italy but at 600/ticket in fuel and charges on BA is unacceptable. I’d rather go to Hawaii or something if I can go through AA and skip the fuel fees.
How do you book with BA miles on AA?
I got my tkts using BA miles from St.Louis to LA in AA, but flight is in evening reaching LA in night and that too on monday . I did called Rep and she said no other days are available. Wannna to know if I call’aa’ ,will they entertain me and give me ticket of Fri/Sat or Sunday. Also Reptold me no flight available from STLto LV
I was not aware that they allow break journey and then return , wish I i read this blog earlier, quite usefull tips in it.