Oneworld Award Problems

[justinbrett]

I'm looking at flying LHR - JFK - DCA (one way) using points.

When I look up the individual sectors - LHR - JFK is 25,000 points and JFK - DCA is 8,000 points.

However, when I add them to one booking - it says it's 85,000 points.

I read something on the Qantas site that said two or more non-qantas flights will mean it will use the one world award table which is based on return flights.

Does this mean I have to book each sector seperately to use less points? I want a stopover in each city so that wouldn't be a problem - but seems a very strange way to do it.

 

[dajop]

I'm looking at flying LHR - JFK - DCA (one way) using points.

When I look up the individual sectors - LHR - JFK is 25,000 points and JFK - DCA is 8,000 points.

However, when I add them to one booking - it says it's 85,000 points.

Are you changing from BA to AA at JFK? If you are the the one world table would apply, therefore you would be much better off making separate bookings!

 

[justinbrett]

Are you changing from BA to AA at JFK? If you are the the one world table would apply, therefore you would be much better off making separate bookings!

Yeah - I'm paying for a Qantas flight DRW - SIN - LHR - SIN - DRW, and plan to use points for LHR - various US cities and back to LHR.

At the moment I plan to fly LHR - JFK on BA and the rest on AA. However - what is better - BA or AA? I sort of figured BA would be the better choice.

I'm starting to realise that using points on short US domestic flights is very good value!

 

[JohnK]

At the moment I plan to fly LHR - JFK on BA and the rest on AA. However - what is better - BA or AA? I sort of figured BA would be the better choice.

I haven't use either, I used TWA long time ago but this does not count anymore, but wouldn't think it would be a great deal of difference flying BA or AA! I would go for AA just for the points saving.

If you fly AA LHR-JFK(stopover)-DCA then it is only 33,000 points which is covered in partner award table, not OneWorld table, based on individual one-way distances. It is 25,000 points for LHR-JFK and after stopover it is 8,000 JFK-DCA. No need to use separate bookings, just use multi-destination and you can also add any other destinations you wish to visit and treats them all as one-way flights.

If you are convinced that you want to fly BA trans-Atlantic then make this a separate award booking for 25,000 points and then make a new award booking for all your internal AA flights in US as multi-destinations bookings and if you return to LHR with BA then make this a separate booking again.

Good luck.

 

[Alan in CBR]

In my opinion, BA is a much better airline than AA in all classes. If I'm reading correctly then there is no points difference between a single itinerary LHR-JFK-DCA on AA and two separate itineraries LHR-JFK on BA, then JFK-DCA on AA. If that's the case then I would do two separate itineraries.

Of course if you were not planning a stopover in New York, then a single itinerary would be better in case of a missed connection, but that doesn't apply here.

If you are paying for Oz-LHR, have you considered doing a Round The World instead? Might work out better value than using points for the US part of the trip. Unless of course you got a really good fare for the Oz-LHR bit.