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In this how-to guide, I will show you how to book a British Airways Avios award ticket. In my demo, I will book an American Airlines flight, but the steps below will work with US Airways, British Airways, and most OneWorld Alliance airlines. If you find a flight on AA.com but cannot find it on BA.com, you will have to call British Airways and have them book the award for you. It will cost $25 for a phone booking fee.
The first step is to search on American Airlines’ website (AA.com) for award space. In this example, I found an economy award from SNA to DFW during Memorial Day Weekend.
On the next page, it shows the total cost to book this award flight is 12,500 American Airlines miles and $77.50 in taxes/fees. If you book an American Airlines award flight within 21 days of travel, you will be hit with a $75 “close-in booking fee.” Remember those dates/times and head over to British Airways’ website (BA.com).
Log into your British Airways account and scroll down the account page.
Find the banner on the left side and fill in the same search information as you entered on the American Airlines website. Make sure to change the first drop down menu to “Book with Avios.”
Here is the results page. If there are any British Airways operated flights on the route you selected, those will show up first at the top. If not, it will show flights on OneWorld alliance partner airlines. Select the same flight as the one on American Airlines’ website and click the Continue button.
As you can see, this reservation only costs 10,000 British Airways Avios and $2.50 in taxes/fees. Agree to the terms and click Continue to the Payment Page.
Enter your email address, full name, date of birth, phone number and click the Continue buttton.
Review the dates/times and select your payment method. Remember, all charges on British Airways’ website are done in London, so you will get hit with a foreign transaction fee (unless your credit card has no foreign transaction fees), even though the charge is in US Dollars for a US domestic flight.
Enter your credit card information and billing address, then click the Make Booking button.
If everything goes through properly, you will have a new British Airways Avios award ticket. To view details of the itinerary and select seats, click the Manage My Booking button.
Here are more details about your British Airways Avios award ticket.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the link to Choose a Seat.
Click the Reserve Seats button.
Agree to the terms and click the Reserve Seats button. You will be brought to the American Airlines website with your American Airlines award reservation.
Click the link to Choose Seats.
Choose any available seat and click Continue. You will then be brought back to your British Airways Avios award ticket page.
Meanwhile, you will receive a confirmation email from British Airways with all the important information regarding your British Airways Avios award ticket.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.
(Next Post: How to Cancel or Refund British Airways Avios Award Tickets)
I’m curious, what will you be going to Dallas for?
It’s actually a booking for a friend of mine, I will be in Utah this weekend, not Texas.
Have you ever tried booking a ticket that shows up on AA award, but not on BA award space?
That would only apply for the AAnytime Awards (2x the number of miles as a standard award ticket). You can’t book those tickets with British Airways Avios.
Actually, I was asking about your point on “If you find a flight on AA.com but cannot find it on BA.com”. Is it straight forward to ask the representative to book the flight that you found on AA.com and then book it through BA.com . I don’t want to end up in a situation where I have to transfer the points from Chase UR to Avios, only to realise that those tickets are not available on BA.com
That has yet to happen to me unless there is one seat available on AA.com and someone purchases it before you speak with BA. I would call BA first, have them create the itinerary and then you can quickly transfer Chase UR to BA while on the phone. Transfers are instant, just have the agent refresh your account balance. You should be good to go.
Does this only work with AA flights, or can you select ‘other carriers’ then ‘no stops’ and then the list of Alaska flights from SEA-LIH pop up…can you use those flight numbers when you call BA? It would be a lot cheaper than being routed from SEA-LAX-LIH-LAX-SEA
Yes, if you find the award space on AA.com, just give those dates/times/flight numbers to the British Airways agent and they can book it for you.
Hi Grant, I’m looking at a r/t air through AA: BWI to STX. Economy AAnytime are my only choices coming and going; can I not book this fare level on BA? In fact when I look up STX on BA I get no results at all, even though my AA flight provides BWI-MIA-STX. Is this one of those call BA situations? THANKS!
British Airways can only book Saver level, not Standard level awards. What dates are you looking to travel and I can tell you what I see.
It looks like there’s no partner that fly directly from Bay Area to LAS. Which other award program would you use if you are going to Vegas? Thanks in advance.
From SFO, you can use United, Virgin America, or Southwest. From OAK, you can use Southwest and Spirit. From SJC, I think just Southwest. However, none of those are BA airline partners.