American Airlines AAdvantage or British Airways Avios: Where to Credit Your Flights

The other day, a colleague of mine asked me to which oneworld partner he should credit his upcoming business trip to London: American Airlines AAdvantage or British Airways Avios. He is flying Business Class on British Airways. British Airways actually gives our company a free upgrade to First Class when booking Business Class. That’s a pretty nice perk!

Since both airlines allow you to credit your flight miles to either, he has a choice to make. As a general rule, American Airlines miles should be valued higher than British Airways miles. They have fewer surcharges and allow you to add on free one-ways within North America by creating a stopover in your home city. You can fly from Aruba in January, stop in Los Angeles for 6 months and then fly to Paris in July for a total of 20,000 AA miles!

But my colleague doesn’t want to create a super routing and travel through Europe. All he wants are free tickets Mexico’s Riviera Maya for his family in December. For that, he just needs roundtrip flights to Cancun. And British Airways Avios is among my Best Ways to Fly to the Caribbean with Miles! 

A round trip ticket on American Airlines to Cancun in December would cost him 35,000 American Airlines miles, but only 20,000 British Airways Avios. British Airways also gives him a 50% bonus for flying Business Class with them while American Airlines only gives 25%. He’ll earn 10,400 British Airways Avios miles per trip vs 9,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles. If he credits his flights to American Airlines miles, it will take him four trips to London to earn the 35,000 miles he needs for a round trip ticket to Cancun. But with British Airways Avios, it will only take two.

My colleague should credit his flights to British Airways. His choice is clear, but here are the things to consider when deciding where to credit your flights:

1. Compare what you will earn for your flight for each program

Before deciding where to credit your paid flights, you want to check exactly how much you will earn with each airline for your flight. There are certainly differences between the two. As an example, I will compare the earning rates for American Airlines flights and British Airways flights with both programs. These rates apply for those that have no status with either airline. Of course, both airlines give more miles plus additional benefits to members with status.

When flying American Airlines, the earning rates in all fare classes are exactly the same for the AAdvantage and Avios program.

However, British Airways actually gives more Avios for Premium Economy, Business Class and First Class on its own flights.

My colleague’s ticket is in J on British Airways. With British Airways, he will be earning 150% of the miles flown, but only 125% with American Airlines.

You can find the British Airways miles earning rates for British Airways here and for the oneworld partners here.

The American Airlines earning rates for all oneworld partners is published here. You can then make comparisons for other partners such as Cathay Pacific, Air Berlin, Japan Airlines, etc.

2. Decide where you want to go and how many miles you need

British Airways and American Airlines have completely different award charts.

British Airways has a distance-based award chart where you pay per segment. You can use the British Airways Avios calculator to determine how many miles you’ll need, but here is also a chart:

The American Airlines award chart charges based on origin and destination so you can get some great value from constructing a creative routing. A good example, once again, is my way of flying from the Caribbean in Winter + to Europe in Summer for 20,000 American Airlines miles total. But if you’re just flying short flights within North America or the Caribbean, British Airways miles are amazing.

With few exceptions, I personally don’t use British Airways to fly to Europe or for longer international trips. You end up paying almost $300 just in taxes and fuel surcharges to fly to London and you can’t add free one-ways in North America.

If we take a look at a comparison for some examples of economy redemptions, we see that British Airways is good for direct short flights within North America during peak season. At 4,500 Avios, it’s close to a quarter of what you would pay in American Airlines miles if you would ever want to fly from Miami to Grand Cayman.  But it quickly loses out once you look at the longer international trips. With no off-peak award chart and fuel surcharges, itineraries with multiple segment quickly become expensive and the great value you get on short flights is completely diminished.

3. Check current airline promotions

When Natalya arranged her trips to Grand Cayman and Cancun with miles, she bought a ticket from San Francisco to Grand Cayman on American Airlines. At the time, American Airlines AAdvantage was running a double miles promotion until the end of the year.

You want to make sure to check out any promotions that the airlines are running for flying with them. American Airlines maintains a regularly updated promotions page with all the current offers. British Airways also lists its current deals.

Changing your frequent flyer program and number on the ticket before the flight is easy. If you decide you want to earn miles on British Airways and then American Airlines announces a promotion, no problem. Just call the airline and ask them to change the frequent flyer number.

4. Evaluate your current mileage balances

All else being equal, you want to look at your current miles situation.

It’s generally not a good idea to have 10,000 in American Airlines miles and 15,000 in British Airways miles. You then have orphan miles sitting around. The 10,000 American Airlines are worthless since there isn’t a single ticket you can redeem with such a low balance. If you had collected all your miles into American Airlines, you could then redeem for a one-way ticket to Europe from October 15 – May 15. Or, better yet, you can redeem for a flights from the Caribbean in January, have a free stop-over in your home city for six months and then go to Europe in July all for 20,000 miles.

You want to have a “powerful” balance in your mileage accounts that gives you some options. If you have 60,000 American Airlines miles, you can go many places. You can take two round trip domestic flights in economy, a round trip flight to Europe in economy, a one way flight to Europe in Business class, a round trip flight to Japan during off-peak times. This is a reasonably powerful balance. 

Law of diminishing returns: On the other hand, once you have a pretty high balance, having additional miles does not help as much. 135,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles is enough to cover a round trip ticket to anywhere in first class so there’s no reason to collect a ton of miles in a single program. Having a powerful balance in both programs beats having an excessive balance in just one. 

Right now, between my parents and I, we have about 100,000 British Airways miles and 200,000 American Airlines miles. Since British Airways Avios are used primarily for short flight that don’t take many miles, we feel reasonably confident we have enough miles in both programs for our needs. We don’t feel the need to collect any more. 

Summary

• You need to consider a few aspects when deciding whether to credit miles for your trip to American Airlines or British Airways
• Check what you earn for your flight in each program. For example, British Airways gives more miles for its own Business Class tickets than does American Airlines.
• Determine how many miles each airline charges for an upcoming trip you want to take. British Airways is often better for short-flights within North America and the Caribbean, but American Airlines is better for longer flights to other continents.
• Check current promotions and evaluate your current mileage balance. You want to build powerful mileage balances that are then useful on your upcoming trips.

If you consider all these aspects when you make your decisions, you will be well on your way to making the most efficient use of the miles you earn for your trips!