Book American Airlines Awards Like a Pro:
- Part 1 – Introduction
- Part 2 – Types of Awards & Charts
- Part 3 – How Much Will My Award Cost?
- Part 4 – One-way, Openjaws, Stopovers, & North American Gateway Cities
- Part 5 – American Airlines, Alaska Airlines & Hawaiian Airlines for North American awards
- Part 6 – International Award Routes
- Part 7 – Finding British Airways Award Availability
- Part 8 – Finding Cathay Pacific Award Availability using the British Airways website
- Part 8b – Finding Cathay Pacific Award Availability using Japan Airlines’ Website
- Part 9 – Finding Iberia (& European) Award Availability using the Qantas Website
- Part 10 – Finding LAN & South American Award Availability
- Part 11 – Finding Air Tahiti Nui Awards to France & French Polynesia with FlightStats
- Part 11b – Finding Air Tahiti Nui Awards to France & French Polynesia with ExpertFlyer
The best free way to check Cathay Pacific award availability is by using the British Airways website. Alternatively, you could also use the Japan Airlines website to check Cathay Pacific award availability.
You can also check the Cathay Pacific website itself for award availability, but it may show you award seats which cannot be booked by partner airlines such as American Airlines. That’s why I prefer checking the website of a partner airline such as British Airways and then calling American Airlines to make the booking.
Cathay Pacific is one of the nicest airlines in the world, and is a great way to spend your American Airlines miles.
Using Cathay Pacific to fly from the US to Hong Kong makes it much easier to get to Asia using American Airline miles because not only can you fly on Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong, but you could then connect to other Cathay Pacific flights (including its Dragon Air subsidiary) to get to other destinations in Asia.
You can also fly on American Airlines or Japan Airlines to Japan and then connect on either Japan Airlines or Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong and from Hong Kong to other Asian destinations.
British Airways Award Website quirks
The British Airways website will display award availability for ONLY British Airways if there are award seats on British Airways flights available.
For example, if you are flying from the US to Hong Kong and British Airways AND a partner airline both have award seats, the British Airways website will initially display ONLY the British Airways award seats (and not show the partner award seats).
This is pretty useless if you’re trying to fly to the Far East from the US, because British Airways awards will always route you via London (the opposite direction!) and won’t show you partner airline availability (on Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines etc.) if there are British Airways flights available.
So we’ve got to trick the system by searching for flights on days when there is no British Airways award availability.
Why?
Because if you search for flights on days when British Airways has no award availability on their own flights, they will give you the option to search for award flights on partner airlines (such as Cathay Pacific).
The British Airways site is also moody and will sometimes refuse to work. I recommend practicing finding award seats even if you don’t have a specific booking to familiarize yourself with the website.
I still get a thrill when I find award seats which the telephone agents say are not available!
Cathay Pacific Departure Cities
Cathay Pacific flies to Hong Kong from the following North American cities:
- Chicago
- Los Angeles
- New York
- San Fransisco
- Toronto
- Vancouver
How to find Cathay Pacific Award availability
Let’s say I want to find 1 seat from Nashville to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on October 16, 2012 in First Class.
I can search on AA.com, but it won’t show Cathay Pacific award availability, and will prompt me to call the reservation department.
So I break up my flight into segments. I’ll first look for award availability from:
- The US to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific using the British Airways website
- Then Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur on Cathay Pacific using the British Airways website
- Finally the award from Nashville to the US departure city of my Cathay Pacific international flight on AA.com
All these segments will cost me 67,500 miles for a 1-way First Class award using American Airlines miles.
Segment – Los Angeles to Hong Kong
Step 1
Log into your British Airways account account by entering your membership number and PIN in the top right side of the screen and click “Log in.”
Step 1 – Log into your account
If you don’t have a British Airways Executive Club account, sign-up for a free account here.
Step 2
Click on “Spending Avios” on the left hand side menu under “Executive Club.”
In case you’re wondering, Avios is the new name for British Airways miles.
Step 2 – Click on “Spending Avios”
Step 3
Click on “Book Flights with Avios”
Step 3 – Click on “Book Flights with Avios”
Step 4
Let’s say I want to check availability from Los Angeles to Hong Kong on October 16, 2012.
I enter “Los Angeles” in the “From” box and “Hong Kong” in the “To” box and select my class of service.
Step 4 – Enter your flight information
I then enter my departure date and click the “One way only” box because I like searching segment by segment. If you are booking a return trip, just search for the return segments after you find awards for your outbound segments.
And finally, I click on “Get Flights”
Step 5
If you’re given the option for a stopover, select no stopover, because the only option for a stop over is in London (according to the British Airways website), and we don’t want to see routes via London because those flights will be on British Airways (and we’re trying to see partner airline availability)
Step 5 – Say no to a Stop Over
Step 6
If you’re lucky and British Airways doesn’t have award seats on their flights, you will get the option to search for partner airlines (skip to step 6c).
Step 6 a
If you do get a routing via London only, click on “Search up to 7 days earlier” or ”Search up to 7 days later”
Why? Because we’re trying to find out the days when British Airways has no award availability on their own flights, so that we can get it to look for partner award availability.
Step 6 a – Finding out when British Airways has no award seats on their flights via London
We’re trying to force the British Airways website to find a date when there is no availability on British Airways flights so that it shows us the option to search partner airlines.
Step 6b
I click “Search up to 7 days later” and the next search result is for October 23rd.
This means that British Airways has NO award seats available on their OWN flights between October 16 and October 23rd.
Step 6 b – Next British Airways flight is on October 23rd
So if I search for an award flight (step 4) from Los Angeles to Hong Kong between October 16 and October 23rd, I will get an option to search for partner award seats because British Airways has no availability on those dates.
Step 6c
Since I now know that British Airways has no seats available on their flights on October 17, I click “Start Again” and search for flights from Los Angeles to Hong Kong on October 17 (Step 4).
Again, we’re trying to find a day when British Airways has NO award seats on their own flights via London, so that you get an option to search for partner airlines.
Step 6c – Calendar shows us when British Airways has no award seats
Looking at the calendar, we see that British Airways has no award availability on their own flights on the 17th (we knew that from step 6b), so we click the “Search” button under “Partner airlines” to search for flights on Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines and other partners.
Step 6d
We then see award availability for partner airlines on October 17th. Bingo!
But remember that we originally wanted to see award availability for October 16th, so we click the “Search up to 7 days earlier” which takes us to award availability (including partner airlines for October 16th).
Step 6d – Cathay Pacific Award availability for my departure date
Once you see partner airline award availability in the search results, clicking the “Search up to 7 days later” or “Search up to 7 days earlier” will still show partner availability in the search results.
Step 7
After clicking “Search up to 7 days later” we see award flights on October 16 from Los Angeles to Hong Kong in First Class on Cathay Pacific along with the British Airways options we first saw in step 6a.
Step 7 – Award seats are available on our original search date!
You now know that there is 1 First Class award seat from Los Angeles to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific flight 0883. So instead of relying on the American Airlines agent to find this flight for you, you can feed this specific flight to the agent to book.
At this point, write down the flight details. For example, I’d write down:
CX 0883 from Los Angeles (LAX) to Hong Kong (HKG) departing at 23:50 on October 16 and arriving in Hong Kong on October 18 at 5:40 am in First Class
Segment 2 – Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur
Repeat steps 2 through 7 above to see availability for flights from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur.
Easier to find Cathay awards within Asia using British Airways website
Finding award flights within Asia is much easier, since the British Airways website doesn’t usually try to route you via London on a British Airways flight.
Lots of flights from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur
I’d write down my flights and then ask the American Airlines agent to book the sequence of flights for me.
Taxes and Fees
Booking a Cathay Pacific award using American Airlines miles is very cheap. For example, it costs only $2.50 in taxes and fees for an award ticket from Los Angeles to Hong Kong in First Class on Cathay Pacific.
And $35.50 for the return flight from Hong Kong to Los Angeles in First Class.
You’ll have to pay a $25 telephone booking fee, but it is totally worth that fee to get access to partner airlines.
British Airways charges high surcharges and fees on award flights made using BRITISH AIRWAYS miles. So IGNORE the taxes and fees you see on the British Airways website, because American Airlines won’t charge you those fees for Cathay Pacific award bookings.
British Airways wanted 105,000 Avios points and $156.90 for the flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong and another 105,000 Avios points and $182.86 for the flight back from Hong Kong to Los Angeles.
But you will pay much less if you use American Airlines miles to book your Cathay Pacific ticket
Calling American Airlines to make the booking
I’d then call American Airlines (1-800-433-7300) and ask them to put on hold (for up to 5 days) these specific flights which I found.
Bottom Line: The British Airways award website is quirky, but with a little practice, you’ll soon be able to search for partner airline awards seats.
The British Airways website is great for searching for award seats not only on Cathay Pacific, but also for other partner airlines, in particular, Japan Airlines, LAN, and Royal Jordanian.
I have earned and redeemed millions of airline miles and hotel points to travel the world for free. Now I'm blogging to help more people do the same! 
I avoid the problem of BA flight availability crowding out display of CX flights by using the JL website to search for CX partner award availability. It’s also a bit less cumbersome to work through.
Agree with Gary, JAL mileage bank is (somewhat) easier to use and also the most accurate in terms of availability that AA can see. It is even pretty good at doing multi segment search. e.g. you can do JFK-SIN and it will show JFK-HKG-SIN and allow you to change the second HKG-SIN leg individually after selecting the first to check more custom availability without having to do the whole thing twice
Great walk through. I would like see you do a walk through also on the JAL site too. Helps to keep all options open.
What’s the breakdown of AA miles used for each segment? Thanks!
Thanks so much for the detailed information on bookings. As a suggestion, you should reference all posts in a series to each other in a list format to make it easier for readers to navigate through the entire series. Keep up the good work.
@T There is no breakdown. BA charges by segment, AA charges a flat fee based on regions.
Nice article! Just wondering in this case is it ok to have a stopover in LAX as a North America gateway city?
One of your most helpful posts! If you keep this up, who knows, I may do my next cc app through one of your referral links:-)
Do you need JAL miles to use their award search website?
I am thinking of blowing some AA miles next year to Asia. I am thinking to do both HKG and Bali in one trip for a week or so. We can fly out of Chicago or NYC. Is it feasible to find 4 award seats available? If yes, how is business or first class? (maybe we can split two up front and two coach?) How many miles is it required? Is stopover in HKG allowed? Any input from you or anyone else is very welcome?
Thanks.
Thanks so much for this post!! My wife and I are planning a trip to Asia this fall and we have a ton of American Miles to play with.
Thank you, Thank you! I love the “…Like A Pro” series. We recently purchased tickets with real $ from IAD to HKG. It made sense given that we have a lap child. But I have no doubt this post will be helpful when we decide to give baby her own seat on our next flight to Asia.
Great post!
I concur with Gary – I use the JL site. Besides of the annoyances of the BA site, it’s also much faster, at least for me. I try to avoid using BA’s site unless I have no choice.
@Gary Leff @Phil @PerryPlatypus @ArizonaGuy – Good points, and I’ll post soon on using the Japan Airlines tool to search for Cathay flights. I was going to add it to the end of this post, but thought otherwise after seeing how long the post already was!
@T – There’s no breakdown because AA (unlike British Airways) charges a flat rate for travel from the US to Asia. “All these segments will cost me 67,500 miles for a 1-way First Class award using American Airlines miles.”
@jcmitchell21 – Thanks! You’re not the only one who’s noticed the lack of indexing. I plan on indexing all the posts once I complete the series so that it is easier to search. It is easier for me to do it that way, than to update each post each time I write a new part.
@James from BNA – Thanks for helping out!
@Andy- Very well done! You can have a stopover at Los Angeles since it is the international gateway city!
@gpapadop - I don’t believe you need JAL miles to search for an award using their site. With some planning, it should be possible to find 4 awards (perhaps not 4 first class awards on the same flight, but I have seen many coach seats and a fair amount of business seats).
You can’t stop over in Hong Kong using AA miles (only at the International Gateway City), but you could book a separate award using AA miles or BA miles from Hong Kong to Bali from Hong Kong. It costs 35k/55k/67.5 K from the US to Hong Kong using AA miles in coach/business/first class.
@Aurelien W. @SpillWay @MichaelP – Glad you liked it!
I have no doubt that premium service on Cathay Pacific is great, but I once flew coach on Cathay Pacific from San Francisco to Bangkok via Hong Kong, and it was nothing to write home about. About half the plane is allocated to a small number of first and business passengers. I’m pretty sure I had more room flying international on an AA 767. On the plus side, CP’s food options were interesting, including congee for breakfast. In short, if you are planning on flying coach, AA might be better. If you are planning on first or business, CP almost certainly is going to be better.
p.s. of course, AA has a much less extensive route map in Asia.
I used a product called KVS Availability Tool to help plan my family trip to Thailand. Sure it costs a few bucks but I found it easy to use and it was easy to toogle around between programs. I prefered to learn one method of search than each carriers FF site.
Thanks a lot. So 70k coach or 110k Business gets me to HKG. What a bummer I can not fly to Bali and back to HKG with the same miles!
Lots of info, Dariaus. But we sometimes get so caught up getting something for nothing that we overlook the best options. For a relatively small amount of money, you can purchase some search points on AwardNexus.com and this entire process would take well under a minute.
I did this for four FC tickets on Cathay next January, JFK-HKG-BKK. Two couples traveling on same day but different flights. AwardNexus could not have made it easier. Cost me a couple of bucks for the search (and, in the process, has made me very popular with friends!). In the end, I think what we all want is ROI and this was a big winner. But you’re right Dariaius – it can be done.
@Steve S or anyone, I went to that award nexus site. I guess you have to be on flyertalk to sign up, which I am. It has a box at the bottom to click if you are a mod, have a travel site, wrote a trip report, or gave away an item on CC. I haven’t done any of those things, but I could easily write a trip report.
Does anyone know the specifics about writing the trip report and then what you get if you can check that box? Thanks!
+1 to Steve S. Awd Nex works great and is free to FTer’s. Also find QF site easier to work than BA and accurate for my searches.
The only thing I’d add is that just because the AA site lists a domestic award as being available, that doesn’t mean AA will allow you to connect it to an International award without using extra miles.
Even flying only on AA metal, you may see award availability ORD to JFK, and JFK to LHR. But AA will frequently refuse to package them together. I’ve been told, sure, I can use a 25K Business/First award for ORD to JFK , and an additional 62.5K First award JFK to LHR, but not a 62.5K First award for Ord-(JFK)-LHR.
Flying only on AA metal, you can use “multi-city” on the website to put the flights together, and see if it is approved. And sadly it often isn’t. But connecting to partners, say AA DEN-LAX, Cathay LAX-HKG, I’d think you’d need to call AA to find out. Knowing this in advance might somewhat reduce the disappointment when they say “no”.
I haven’t booked a partner award, so maybe their policy on AA domestic connections to the partner flight is different? But I be very surprised if it is….
@zzd – I suspect many folks will be using AA miles on business or first class seats, so they’ll prefer Cathay. I also suspect that the in flight service is better than on American Airlines.
@Mike - I use KVS too. Not the best user interface, but it does get the job done quicker!
@gapadop - AA doesn’t allow stopovers in international cities any more.
@Steve S @pssteve – I agree that using the paid options (Award Nexus, KVS, and Expert Flyer) are easier and often times worth the money, and I plan on covering them later. It’s also nice to know what the options are, so one can appreciate how easy it is to use the paid options!
@Lyssa – I believe you can write a Trip Report in FT and get access to Award Nexus for free. You can also email Peter, the creator of AwardNexus (his email ID is on the page) if you have any other questions. Clicking the box will let you sign up for a free AwardNexus account.
Robert Hanson – You should be able to connect almost any available award at the SAME award level (i.e MileSAAVER) to your international itinerary if it is available. I’d call back, because you can fly ORD-JFK-LHR for the same price as the F award.
If there is a MileSaaver flight from DEN to LAX, you should be able to attach that to your LAX – HKG flight at no extra charge, but you’d have to call to do that.
My one experience with this is several years old, but I did in fact call them, and complained that the website was having problems, because I could get either the domestic award, or the TA award, but not both together on the multi-city page.
I was told by the agent that it wasn’t a website glitch, but rather some domestic milesaver awards are coded for connection to an International flight, and some are coded for domestic only, and there is nothing an agent can do.
I did recently see a FC JFK-LHR flight available this coming summer, and when I tried to connect dosmestically with it on the multi-city part of the AA booking site, the TA part disappeared entirely. It was only available starting from JFK, and the website wouldn’t even acknowledge that it was available if you tried to book it “multi-city”. I haven’t tried the call six different times, and see if someone will give it to you method though….
I know that you cannot use AA miles for India across the Pacific. It has to be via Atlantic but what about Middle East destinations like Dubai?
YES! The post I have been waiting for lol. Hong Kong in 2013 with all my miles! Thanks for this post.
@Robert Hanson it’s not that some flights are coded as being available for domestic only, it’s that one of American’s more obscure routing rules is the requirement that an award can only be between cities where there’s a published fare on the overwater carrier. That’s the problem, for instance, that manyfolks have getting AA to price awards on Etihad between the US and the Maldives. You can fly from Toronto, since EY publishes a fare between YYZ and MLE. But fly from, say, DCA and route DCA-JFK-AUH-MLE and AA will want to separately price the award as DCA-JFK-AUH and AUH-MLE since EY doesn’t have a DCA-MLE fare.
@Robert Hanson – It is probably the routing rules which Gary mentions below.
@Shami – Middle East has to be via the Atlantic as well.
@Steven – You’re welcome!
@Gary Leff – I’ve never really understood why AA requires a published fare.
Besides a bigger seat, how does CX business compare to CX First?
I used AA miles to book a business class ticket to India9SFO-ORD-AIH-HYD & HYD-AUH-JFK-SFO). It cost 67500 miles each way but finding award space is the key.
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Does BA charge fuel surcharges on partner awards using Avios miles even if none of the segments include a BA flight?
I’m also wondering if there’s any way to book an award ticket from Tokyo/Seoul to Singapore on CX with a stopover in HK. CX makes a connection in HK anyway so will they allow a stopover under any circumstances? I think AA and BA won’t allow it but not sure if there’s any other way. What if I, out of my own fault, were to miss my connecting flight HKG – SIN? Will I be allowed to book another flight on another day?
James – BA will charge fuel surcharges on partner flights, for example Cathay Pacific and Japan Airlines flights. BA doesn’t charge surcharges on AA flights with the US, AA & LAN flights from the US to South America, all flights departing from Brazil, and most inter-Australia Qantas awards. I’m putting together a series on BA awards and will cover this.
AA won’t let you have a stopover in Hong Kong since it is NOT the North American gateway city, but you can stop in Hong Kong for LESS than 24 hours (since that is not considered a stopover). However, BA has a distance based award chart so you can fly Tokyo to Hong Kong on 1 award and from Hong Kong to Singapore on another award.
If you miss your flight, you are at the mercy of the airlines, and that usually doesn’t end up in your favor!
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I’m trying to book a SE Asia trip. I looked up through BA and noted all my preferred flights, only to call and offer to list the flights, and be met with a rejection. The agent said she couldn’t look up with flight numbers. I was just asked where I’d like to go and when. I’ve never dealt with AA, so I’m not sure if this is the norm. In the end I got a better date on the outbound, slightly worse on the return, minus the 23hr layover in HKG which I was looking forward to, and forcing a 12 hour layover at LAX.
My question: Should I abandon this trip and go with what BA showed to be available if I call again and work with a different agent? I didn’t try JAL. Is that more reliable or aligned with what the agents see?
can i hire you to do a search/sort this out for me in 2013?
@Ben: You may first want to go over go over Daraius’s Part 4 (stopover rules) to make sure your target itinerary is allowed. Generally, I would consider the BA award search engine a very useful screening tool. You should not expect 100% accuracy, and definitely fewer options than what’s available to a live AA agent.
@Ben – I’d hang up and call back until you get an agent willing to work with you. I’d check both BA and JAL for Cathay which should also be the awards which AA agents can see. There is a lot of variability in agents, so hang up and call back a few times until you get the flights you want.
@colleenl – I don’t book awards, but I’ll email you folks who do book awards for a fee.
@Max – Thanks for helping out!
What is the point of asking the agent to put the flights on hold for 5 days ?
@Michael – I like putting the flights on hold so that I can double check to see if they are accurate and if a better option opens up within 5 days.
Hi Darius, I would appreciate if you can please help me. My husband and I will have 50,000 Avios soon and are planning to book a round trip from Singapore to Italy in Economy or London. Please advise on what’s the best and cheapest way to redeem? Thank you!
@ay – Unfortunately, you will have to fly on British Airways and will have to pay fuel surcharges if you use Avios. The fuel surcharges may be a bit lower if you fly on Cathay via Hong Kong, but you may pay more miles. It may be better to not use Avios for this route (if you can help it) in coach.
Hi Daraius, I found something very strange when I help my friend booking flight from HKG to JFK. As you suggest, I searched both British Airways and Japan Airlines websites and found the same award availability in business class. However, when I called American Airlines right after I saw the seats, the agent on the phone told me they cannot even see a single seat in biz class, only one seat in first class with a different time from what I saw on BA and JAL websites. I hanged up and tried a second time and another agent also tell me the same thing….
Is there anything I could do to let them see what I see from the other two websites?
Thanks
@Yi – I’d call again and ask the agent to look for the specific flight number and give the agent the dates and times.
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I’m planning on booking a flight through BA with CX: LAX->HKG->LAX. I understand the distance would be 35000 Avios but is the cost suppose to be around $150 each way? It’s still considerably cheaper to book a flight using miles that I plan on transferring from the MR promo going on right now, but $350 for taxes and fees is different from what you calculated. Did I miss a step?
@Jay – This post was on using American Airline miles, not British Airways Avios, so the taxes and fees are lower than what you’d pay if you used Avios points. I priced out the segments on BA.com and a coach ticket had ~$150 to $175 in fees and taxes each way, so ~$320 in total.
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Hello Darius
I have been studying this for a while now for my trip to Bali and Thailand. My boyfriend will be flying out of CLT and I will be flying out of FRA and we are using American Airline miles. Leaving out of CLT the only option is to fly through LHR which makes the taxes high for an economy. We wanted to fly economy the whole way to save for future trips. Could we do CLT-FRA(via)-BKK(stopver)-Bali(stopover) as a one-way award ticket? This is soooo confusing. I’m not seeing award seats on Cathay, AA, or British.
@Krys – You could both meet in Bali. Your boyfriend could fly to Hong Kong on Cathay and then to Bali – he doesn’t have to fly to FRA unless you want him too! You could fly on Cathay to Hong Kong and then to Bali on a separate award. You can’t have a stopover outside of the North American gateway city, so you can’t stopover in Bali or Bangkok. However, you could use Avios points to travel from Bali to Bangkok etc. The Japan Airline website is better for award availability on Cathay. Or you could hire an award booking service to book the award.
Darius, this is an amazing series that has helped me immensely! Do you have a similar series for booking Delta award flights, or for any other airlines?
@James - Unfortunately, I don’t have another series on other airlines, but want to start working on that at some point.
Daraius- great presentation with the Frequent Miler and loved the tips you gave during the “shhh” session at FTU LA! I’ve been following your blog since the 2 browser trick; keep up the great work! I think this is a basic question- CX stops in YYR from HKG before continuing on to JFK. Can I stopover in YYR and continue on CX metal from YYR-JFK? e.g. 3/12/13 HKG-YYR on CX, 7/15/13 YYR-JFK on CX? Thanks!
Whoops, left out the fact that this will be on a ow award redemption on AA. Thanks!
@CalAggie21 – Thanks for reading and for attending FTU! You should be able to, since YYR would be the North American international gateway city for your flight.
Hi Daraius,
(I recently emailed you about this but just in case that doesn’t reach you I’m trying here too.) I am still a bit confused just because I have NEVER used miles for anything and feel clueless about even the most basic terminology. Anyway, here is my situation: I have 70,536 miles and my husband has 28,410 miles with American Airlines. We are planning a trip to Malaysia this summer, departing from LAX on June 20 and flying back out of Kuala Lumpur on July 7.
I called American Airlines to find out if we had enough miles to cover part of our ticket or get a free upgrade (again, I’m clueless about what I might even be entitled to so I don’t really know what to ask them) and was told there was no availability for awards. I don’t even know what that means!
I’ve been reading through your site and it seems I shouldn’t take the American Airlines agents’ word as final. Is there anything we can do with 98,946 AA miles between us regarding our upcoming trip? Economy tickets are $1,650 a person on Cathay and I’d love if we could somehow either reduce that amount or get a class upgrade somewhere in there if we’re going to pay that in full. If there’s any way you could help me I would be SO appreciative! Thanks so much for reading
@Kate – Thanks for reading! I’ll reply to your email soon, but Malaysia Airlines is now an American Airlines partner and you can redeem miles for travel on them or Cathay or other airlines to Malaysia. It is 35K, 55K & 67.5K miles in coach, business, or first class for a 1-way award. So you don’t have enough for a round trip award for 2. You shouldn’t take the AA agents word, since there are partner airlines which may have award availability. You could book 2 1-way award using your miles, and pay cash for the other 1-way, but you’d spend ~$700 for it (returning on July 7), so you wouldn’t save that much (but still half your cost). Or you could save your miles for a future trip.
We have 217,000 Avios, 105,000 AA, 33,000 spg miles and want to fly business or first on CP 1/3/14-1/19/14 I know it’s too early to book but do these points need to be combined? How is that done? Also, I emailed one of the “famous” award booking services that spoke at FTU and he never acknowledged my post. A little nerve wracking. Who would you recommend? Sjgrado at yahoo.
@Grado – You’re approaching the 330 day booking window for American Airlines, so you may be able to book them soon. You can transfer the SPG points to AA, and book flights on Cathay with American Airlines miles and British Airways miles. However, you will pay higher fees when using British Airways points.
Here’s a post on award booking services which may help.
Darius,
Thank you for posting these very helpful guides. I am completely new to international flights, AA, and Cathay Pacific. I’m trying to figure out the best way to get from LAX to HKG to FOC (Fuzhou, China), and so I know what type of miles I should be accumulating. From what I’ve gathered so far, it seems like AA miles redeemed on Cathay Pacific seems to be the way to go.
Regarding the example you’ve done here, are you saying that LAX to HKG to KUL only costs 67.5k miles in First Class? I see on the award chart that North American to Asia Zone 2 is 67.5, but how much is the trip from HKG to KUL?
it appears that ba.com changed their ability to search for availability on partner airlines. you no longer have the option of step 6c. the search partner window on the right does not pop up even if ba does not have any availability. is anyone else seeing that?
@Justin Pan - If you don’t have a stopover, you pay the same rate – 67.5K – regardless of whether it is LAX to HKG or LAX to HKG to KUL (as long as you don’t stopover in HKG).
@bl181 – BA still shows partner availability, though they have changed the interface a bit.
Hello, can I book LAX-SIN on Cathay with Avios thru BA’s site? Or segment by segment? Or can I only use international avios on BA and pay their fees?
Hi, What is the best strategy to use AA miles for tickets to India ( DEL) from SEA? Thanks!
@Jan G - You can book that on Cathay using Avios points on the BA website. But you will have to pay high fuel surcharges etc.
@AJ – You could fly on AA to London and then BA to Delhi, or fly on Ethiad. If you can find a routing on both Cathay and Malaysia airlines, you could even book an explorer distance based award.
Hey Daraius,
I have a few questions few you booking award flights with AA miles.
When a flight has multiple segments i.e. Chicago to Hong Kong and then Hong Kong to Thailand, does this count as 1 award on AA?
Is this how a stop over works?
Chicago to Bangkok
Bangkok to Chicago
chosen stop over city within 1.25 of mpm to Chicago within a year of booking flights?
“Finally the award from Nashville to the US departure city of my Cathay Pacific international flight”
@Richie Rich – Yes, it does count as one award. But AA will not let you have a stop over in Bangkok. It has to be in the US international gateway city – which is Chicago in your example.
Daraius, thanks for the information. In that example does the stopover then apply to me fly to somewhere else from Chicago within the MPM? Or, from a city within the MPM to Chicago? Does the type of seat (business, 1st class) also apply to the stopover?
@Richie Rich – You can fly from, say, Kansas City to Chicago (stop in Chicago) fly to Hong Kong and then arrive in Bangkok (destination) as long as there is a published routing. See milevalue blog for more details.
I am trying to redeem AA miles for Cathay F/C class. I checked BA and JL website and showed availability but when I called AA to book, I was told there was no availability for those dates. What’s going on?
@peter c. – Call another rep and feed them the flights segment by segment and confirm that they are looking for the right date, time and class of service.
please also email me the people you recommend for booking international award flights. i do not want to do it and would rather pay someone- it is too complicated!!!! also, if i booked on cathaway with aa to BKK are stopovers allowed in dubai or singapore ? if not, are they allowed at all and where?
@julie davidson – See this post for more details.
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Thanks so much for this post! I followed all the instructions and used my AA miles (doing research through the BA site) and got a RT flight Business Class on Cathay Pacific from Chicago to Bangkok for $60 in fees. Would have cost me $7500 if I had purchase the ticket that day.
Thanks for enlightening all of us novice reward travelers!
I do have a problem though finding Cathay availability on the BA site and I think it may be due to them changing the way their site works:
On step 6c, I don’t get the option to search partner airlines when I find a date that BA has no award flight.
Ex: I try to book 2 first class seats from London to DFW on 9/24
Thanks so much for the help! I’m going to try JAL again.
-Dave
@Eliza - Congrats! Reader success stories are my favorite type of comments!
@David G- British Airways has updated their website, but it should more easily show partner availability.