Thanks to the Amex Platinum Business Bongo benefit that I never remember to use, I'm replying from in the air somewhere over Nor Cal!
Oh! Have fun! I think my favorite part of DL One is the mid flight chocolate chip cookie
Where is DD attending university?
Thank you! It 's always fun to compare airline products, although so much depends on what kind of plan you end up on. I hope this one has a good set up. I used Seatguru at the time, but I want to say this flight was the only one available with Air France so I had the choice of beggars
DD is beginning her second year at Durham in Northern England. She's studying archaeology and loving it. My husband and I are living very vicariously!
Thanks and glad it was helpful. I've had pretty good experience with BA overall, too. The taxes are brutal for premium cabin, but they are hard to avoid. I was able to get this flight pretty cheap on Delta with AF (67,500 miles and $20ish), but I've found that premium cabin flights with low taxes to and from England are extremely hard to come by. United has low taxes, but they seem to release next to nothing out of SFO. My best score was a recent VS upper class flight out of SFO to LHR using 75k Delta miles and only $35 or so in taxes. But those seem to be unicorns. I view the taxes on BA or VS like
@calypso--as a less expensive way of buying/upgrading a business/first class ticket.
I'm v. tempted to do this offer. But I already have enough avios for one more trip (and we have one booked) and we only do one, maybe 2 flights across the pond a year, so if I got more Avios, they'd be earmarked for a 2020 trip, and I'm not sure the extra avios are worth having our MRs all tied up there. But the 40% bonus is really tempting...
That definitely makes it a tough decision, and I can see why you wouldn't want to do it even with the promo. You never know if BA will devalue their program before now and then. We go back and forth so much, I can never have enough avios. AMEX seems to run the transfer promo every fall. I waited around as long as i could for it to buy our JAL Japan tickets as it was earlier last year. Of course, about a month after I needed it, it showed up, LOL! The promo would have saved me over 140,000 MRs!
Are Avios the best to collect for a trip to London? We're looking at a possible 2020 trip, and since I'll need 4 tickets, I want to start collecting as much as possible to reduce oop costs. Also I heard the fees are crazy high. Is it still worth using Avios even with the fees? We are also most likely flying SFO or SMF.
If you are trying to minimize out of pocket costs then I think most people would probably say no and that you are better off with one of the US carriers (UA or AA come to mind)--particularly if you are planning to find economy where award space is much easier to find. UA and AA will both have good economy awards with low taxes.
But if you want to fly in business/first with four people direct, you are going to have a tough time finding award availability for that many on the US carriers. With United, my suggestion would be to be ready the day the flights drop and look for partner awards. I've been able to snag 3-4 on Air Canada in business doing this (flying through Vancouver). You *might* be able to find two business seats from SFO to LHR direct on UA when they drop, and then wait until the last minute for then to open more award space, but this can be a crap shoot.
@Calfan was able to do it a couple years back on UA when she flew to London to catch a cruise a few days before my family, but none of the flights on our day had any award availability open up. You have to be wiling to fly coach if you do it that way.
For me, I'm willing to pay the $$ in taxes to guarantee a premium cabin seat with BA or VS. They *tend* to have better award availability at the outset. If you want to do premium economy, I'd be looking at VS. I love their premium economy product. A lot of times we will fly Business out (the sleeping way) and PE back. The fees aren't as brutal on PE flights either.
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