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Earlier in the week, Gary Leff, from View From The Wing, announced that British Airways had slashed the cost of most American domestic First Class travel, reporting that BA had reduced the cost by 50%.
Starting January 11, 2017, American Airlines will start using Business Class fare buckets for its Premium domestic cabin, although the cabins will still be referred to as First Class by the airline.
British Airways seems to be realigning their pricing policy in line with American fare classification. As a result, a one-way first class flight on American booked with British Airways will drop from 30,000 miles to 15,000 miles for flights up to 1,150 miles.
It is not clear whether this is just a temporary adjustment from British Airways, and in the long run they could revert their pricing to reflect how American Airlines classifies its cabins. For now, however, there are some great deals to be had.
Currently, for flights between 1,151 and 2,000 miles, BA charges 10,000 miles for an Economy ticket, and 20,000 miles for a Business Class fare. This is a good deal by most standards since generally Premium cabins cost more than double the cash price of economy.
If you're thinking about booking an award for departure after January 11, 2017, start looking. You shouldn’t wait to enjoy some great deals when booking American domestic flights using British Airways Avios.
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This might be worth checking out for AA flights from MIA to Central America or northern South America. The zone-based award charts can be quite expensive for these short-haul flights, and award seat availability can be scarce in economy (but sometimes okay up front).
This is the only positive change for BA user. Do you know what mileage upgrade will book into now I hope it wont be D class as D class is very important for round the world ticket.
It’s very good to know. I will looking a premium class for next trip(SEA-LAX) on Feb 2017.
Does anyone know if there are any special taxes/fees associated with using Avios on domestic flights? Taxes/Fees on international flights using Avios are exorbitant.
No fuel surcharges/carrier-imposed fees on U.S. domestic flights when redeeming Avios 🙂
I Finally can use my hoard of avios . Thanks for the info .
Great news!
Does anyone know if the AA non-stop transcontinental flights included through BA?
NY to LAX? Usually a premium.
Looking at consolidating Marriott / Starwood points then transfer 20k to get bonus 5k. Any thoughts?
Yes, as long as their is sAAver award availability.
It’s up & running now for 2017 flights! No need to wait & risk losing availability! I just now booked a flight CHS–MIA on AA for Feb. 2017 using Avios. It offered me Eco @ 7500 or Biz @ 15K. I took Eco because it’s a Barbie Jet.
Thanks for this. I have some BA Avios miles.. that I don’t have plans for.. but this like good on AA.
This is great news and a good move. Thank you so much for posting this, now I can use my Avios points sitting in my BA account for a decent fair when I next travel to the US. I better start looking now!
Not sure what the price using AA miles is but do you know if this is cheaper than using AA?
Rob, depending on the distance, yes. Keep in mind however, that BA only has space to what is otherwise classified as sAAver space on AA.com
Anyone have any ideas on how leverage this with AA miles? I have 40k AA miles I don’t know what to do with.
Alex, you wouldn’t use AA miles for this, only BA Avios (miles).
Thanks for posting this article, I was looking to use AA in E for an internal US flight soon using my precious AA miles, now I can use my hoard of avios instead sitting their not doing much.
While this is great news for redemptions, it’s not so good for BA tier point runs! You could get a decent number of Tier points based on the fact that BAEC treated this as F. Oh well, swings and roundabouts, I suppose.
This is good news but the availability isn’t so great anymore
That’s the rub. Seems like AA metal is hard to get these days. But I still find avios very useful in Asia where I fly a lot.
Time to start racking up those Avios!!
Yes, domestic first is really business class at best…although it is still better than Business Class in Europe which is simply economy seats with the middle seat left open (albeit in the front of the plane). The realignment will be great for flights of this length. I still prefer from a value standpoint to use Economy on the shorter flights.
I’m going to look up some tickets to DC asap!
It’s bloody well high time! AA has done this from the start for its own AAdvantage members, and United has done this for many years in the Star Alliance. If AA wants to call it First Class to domestic customers for marketing reasons, OK, but it’s really Biz at best. And so-called F on Barbie Jets is really Premium Economy!