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Reader Judy emailed to ask:
I’ve got a ton of American Airlines miles, and I want to go to Europe in Business Class. What is my best option?
That’s 106,000 American Airlines miles just for getting two cards and meeting the minimum spending requirements.
American Airlines miles also happen to be the most valuable miles because Delta and United jacked up the prices needed for Business and First Class awards last year, but American’s chart has been steady for years. At this point, the one way award prices to Europe in Business Class are:
- 50,000 American Airlines miles
- 57,500 United miles in United Business
- 62,500 Delta miles
- 70,000 United miles in Business Class on United’s partners
To other regions, the disparity is similar or larger.
But all miles are stronger to certain regions in certain cabins, and Business Class to Europe is a huge weakness for American Airlines miles. The problems:
- American Airlines releases almost no Business Class MileSAAver award space on its own flights to Europe.
- British Airways releases a fair amount of Business Class award space, but American Airlines collects fuel surcharges on British Airways award space. You’ll pay $1,000+ out of pocket for a roundtrip in addition to 100,000 American Airlines miles to fly British Airways Business Class.
- Other partners don’t release much award space, with Finnair releasing the most space.
Bad Space American Airlines Own Flights
American Airlines is revamping its Business Class offerings one aircraft at a time, so that it will feature all fully flat beds in Business Class in the coming years. That’s nice.
What’s less nice is that Business Class award space is almost non-existent on its flights. That includes off peak times. That includes the last few weeks before departure. American Airlines just doesn’t want to release a seat in Business Class to Europe for 50,000 miles to you.
British Airways Fuel Surcharges
Many of American Airlines’ partners impose fuel surcharges on their flights, but American only passes along the surcharges from British Airways and Iberia. British Airways’ fuel surcharges are punitive, which is a shame, because they do release the most award space to Europe of any American Airlines partner.
A roundtrip from JFK to London in British Airways Business Class costs 100,000 American Airlines miles + $1,160.50, which includes $828 in fuel surcharges.
The Best of the Rest
American Airlines’ other partners to Europe are:
- airberlin
- Finnair
- Iberia
S7 Airlines(Moscow-based but doesn’t fly to USA)
US Airways offers very little award space on its European routes, even obscure ones like Philadelphia to Manchester that you imagine can’t have many business travelers.
Iberia award space can be searched on ba.com, and the airline flies to Boston, New York, Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles without much Business Class award space.
Airberlin used to be a fount of award space, but now the Business Class space is very rare on its several American flights.
That leaves Finnair, which doesn’t release much award space, but sadly it’s the best option.
Finnair flies between New York and Helsinki, with connections throughout Europe. It will begin a 3x weekly summer service to Chicago on June 15, but I don’t see any award space on that flight yet.
On the New York route, there is award space 23 days out of the next 330 from New York to Helsinki. There is a lot more award space from Helsinki to New York, call it about two days a week on average, although it’s really more like four days a week in the off season and two days a month during the summer.
New York to Helsinki
Helsinki to New York
You can connect to/from New York on American Airlines or US Airways flights for no extra miles and connect throughout Europe on Finnair flights for no extra miles.
Bottom Line
American Airlines miles are not good to Europe in Business Class. There just isn’t a lot of award space. Other than surcharge-laden British Airways, Finnair offers the most award space, and for whatever reason offers a lot more westbound than eastbound.
If you’re creative–and flexible–you can use American Airlines miles to fly in Business Class to Europe, but I would argue that that’s almost like fighting American Airlines miles good uses. Use your United and Delta–yes, Delta–miles to fly to Europe in Business Class and use your American Airlines miles for its strong suits.
Update January 7, 2015: Here are the strong suits of American Airlines miles.
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Excellent article. As a person who has earned and burned many AA miles I agree with you. American is really trying to force BA flight with the huge surcharges. In the past out of MIA I could get routings to London on AA metal. I am sure going forward there will be more changes. Also they offer some very poor or illogical routing. For example I looked at DFW to the far east on those new routes. I found some availability at the lower level (business class) a few months ago. However instead of routing me from FLL or MIA to DFW, they route FLL to Tampa to DFW. Why in the world with a million flights from South Fl to DFW would they through in a leg to Tampa on the way? It makes no sense. When you are coming back on a big trip like that who wants to have that extra stop on the way home from DFW? Many of the bloggers seem to be so pro AA, but the truth is they have made many changes already, with more to come. Upgrading coach tickets with miles used to be ok at 10K per leg. Then they went to 15K each way and cash 75.00 each way. Total ripoff IMHO. All things observed I can say over the many years generally speaking I was able to cash in many awards at a fair rate. The same rules apply earn them and burn them.
One more thing. I was at the FTU a few weeks ago and a woman told me she wanted to go to Europe in Biz class (on AA_ and searched everything for a summer routing and found zero. Absolutely nothing. I was a little surprised myself, but I rarely want to go there in the summer due to it being even more crowded. Clearly did not want to spend that outrageous sum for BA fuel surcharges and I don’t either.
It is frustrating to see AA try to off-load you on BA (and sometimes the reverse, at high redemptions) but what I DON’T see is anything even remotely reasonable on Delta, which you suggest as an alternative. Flights to AMS (strong partners to there, too) are “lowest” at 160k and commonly 250k and up all through Spring schedule — and I’m very flexible. Sorry, but Delta’s new improved website is still crap, serving up numbers meant to confuse and discourage.
I spent hours, days trying to do RT to Europe in fall of 2015 with AA/USAir miles, finding no saver fares. I loved the Star Alliance partners, but not so with OneWorld because of the things you have stated … No low awards, big fuel charges and taxes, lower rated airlines, etc. I finally found one day with low award on USAIR direct to CDG from Charlotte and latched onto it and put a 30 day hold, until the return opened up. At that point, I routed home through Helsinki with a 23 1/2 Layover to fly Finnair. Hoping for a change and I will spend an additional day visiting Helsinki. How do you rate Finnair in relation to some of the Star Alliance partners as Air Canada, Turkish Airlines, Swiss Air, etc.? I love reading and gaining so much knowledge from you. Thanks!
So, you’ve finally come around to acknowledge reality. I called you out on this multiple times over the past year and a half (as did others), where you were flogging sign-ups for AA cards and gushing over the quality of the AA business seats to Europe. I pointed out that those seats were indeed nice but that it was simply not possible to book them, EVAH. You poo-pooed that and said, well, maybe they were a little hard to book, but you were confident that eventually AA would start releasing more space. Hint: they haven’t, they don’t, they won’t.
I expect American to release more Saver award space in Business Class going forward. How far forward is anyone’s guess.
In a way I don’t blame them, because for the most part the planes are full. But they seem to be not releasing award space in business even when they do have upgrade inventory, so it’s a decision they’ve taken deliberately to not allow any premium cabin TATL award travel on their metal at the saver level. They may as well say the price is 110k each way or 50k with a $500 co-pay.
That’s exactly what you said more than a year ago.
I’ve been watching them carefully, for the past 2 years. Hasn’t happened yet. Of course, its POSSIBLE they might someday reverse course completely and become more generous…but based on what we’ve seen, how likely is that? And what exactly would lead you to conclude that’s going to happen? As you say, it’s anyone’s guess when that might start.
Could your belief that American will start releasing more space be influenced in some way by your direct financial interest in encouraging people to sign up for credit cards? Anyone’s guess.
No, it’s because their competitors release more space and AA has shown a willingness to have the best frequent flyer program.
I was fortunate enough to find 2 round trip business tickets using AA miles for Fall 2015. We are are on AirBerlin for the long flights. There was some availability on Airberlin through Cancun when I was searching so you could route through there.
Great tip. Thanks, Scott!
I don’t think Iberia flies to Boston non-stop anymore (at least that I could find).