Update: Commenter CBS points out another method to book AA awards on BA.com. If you search for an award and select a date on BA.com that should be available based on your AA.com search but it not showing up, you can try toggling between other nearby dates on the flexible date calendar and back to your desired travel date. It may take 10 or 20 togglings back and forth, but eventually the flights should show up!
British Airways has been having technical difficulties booking American awards with Avios since last week. That was supposed to be have been fixed by today, but AA flights are still not showing up on BA.com.
To search for award flights, just go to AA.com and click “redeem miles.”
I always book BA awards as one-way tickets for maximum flexibility.
On the search results page click to open the full calendar, click Economy MileSAAver, and toggle the switch to nonstop flights as BA charges extra for each flight segment. If a date is green just click on the date to view available flights. BA has access to book any of these.
If you want a business class ticket click on Business/First MileSAAver and the blue dates will also be bookable with Avios.
Ignore the mileage rates on AA.com, they have nothing to do with what BA will charge you in Avios to fly on that same AA flight. For example from NYC to Chicago or Miami it will show 12.5K AA miles in coach or 25K AA miles in business class, however British Airways only charges 7.5K Avios in coach and 15K Avios in business class.
You can then call the BA Executive line at 800-452-1201 to book the ticket. Some agents are aware of the issue while others are not. If you get an agent who doesn’t see the flight that showed as a SAAver award on AA.com just tell them that the previous BA agent said that the system isn’t showing AA awards normally and that you have to search for the exact flight number to confirm space for Avios tickets. You can also mention trying a long-sell or manual sell to find the award space, either they will know how to do that or they won’t, there’s no need to try to explain that. Make sure to request that they waive the phone booking fee as the flights are not available on BA.com.
If that still doesn’t work you can HUCA (hang up, call again) or you can try the far superior BA call center in Singapore. Their number is +65-6823-2095 and they’re open weekdays from 9am-5:30pm Singapore time, which is 9pm-5:30am EDT. That call will cost 4 cents per minute with Google Voice/OBi, but the agents there are great at finding nonstop and connecting flights that show up on AA.com and not on BA.com.
Share your toggling or phone call results in the comments!
Ty… Ended up using chase and United because I spent too long trying avios this past week….
I guess , next trip
Bummer. Always search AA.com and keep pushing BA until they’ll book it for you.
I’ve had some success on BA recently by doing the following: after searching for the date you need (knowing that there’s availablilty from AA.com) change the date on the date bar. For example move it ahead a few days and then click back to your date. Keep doing it multiple times until the flight results show. I’ve gotten it first try and 10th try but supposedly it works!
Didn’t work for me, but a HUCA on the phone did.
How many tries did you try?
Wow, just tried it now. Took about 18 times back and forth and sure enough, it finally showed up.
Now find a 4 letter abbreviation for this term…
CBST?
I was gonna say ttyf (toggle till you find)
But I’ll take a hakdosho too as long as its a segula for arichyas yamim
I’m pretty sure FM was the one who came up with that method.
Cool, didn’t see this issue mentioned.
A few weeks ago I had this and toggled many times till it showed up.
I’ve had more success by going to ‘change’ date and just don’t change anything , instead of just switching back and forth
Did you get this trick from fm?
I kept on trying till it showed, about 10 times
Nice!
do they have access to book flights on Alaska with BA avios?
Need to call for those.
does that mean that we have access to all the virgin American flights and how much are those transcon ?
Yes.
Same as every airline. The distance based award chart is in the previous credit card post.
how can ba call themselves a distanced based award chart if they charge 12.5k to la and 20k to lhr from nyc if its almost the same distance ?
It’s not the same distance at all.
Super saver award is avail from ny to cun for 15k each way. If I book through Avios will I incur a fuel charge ?
No fuel surcharge within the Western Hemisphere.
Am I getting this right: if you book thru AA rather than BA, you can use AVios, but not pay the fuel surcharge?
No idea what you’re talking about, sorry. You can only use BA Avios through BA.
BA executive CS is terrible. You can wait on hold for over an hour.
Was only a few minutes when I called this afternoon.
Otherwise, try the Singapore line.
I Called on Monday and booked in about 5 minutes. and yes i looked up your previous “how To”. Thanks Dan.
Nice!
This happened to me twice in the last 2 weeks both times I called and complained bitterly telling them that their system is broken telling them that the award availability is also available on Partners such as Iberia and Alaskan and finally they acknowledged that it was their own fault their own bug in their own system and they manually just made the flight for me
I’ve had some some success reloading the page and having more flights show up.
What about AS flights showing under the Saver Award, should that also be available to book with BA?
You’ll need to call.
I have the reverse problem. I want to book an AA flight (available and I held it) and use my AVIOS points. can I do this on line.
I’m lost. This post is only talking about issues using Avios for an AA flight.
how do I book an AA flight using my avios miles. Can I do it on line or do I have to call the 800 number?
Read the post for several options.
I have noticed that ba is showing 0 Qatar f on any dates even far out. So disappointing.
Try searching on Qantas.com
You can’t search ex-DOH on QF.
Last year I booked an AA flight with avios for both my wife and I but I ended up going by myself. When canceling online there was not an option to cancel just one traveler so had to cancel the whole itinerary and rebook. Since then with avios I have booked each family member on a separate reservation so I don’t lose a whole reservation because one person cancels. Is this neccesary? I suppose I could call BA to cancel but the wait times are aweful.
If you call they can split it.
Call Singapore if you don’t want to hold.
Thanks I will try that
but the thing is that 99% no mileSAAver is available on aa.com AA sucks!
There are hardly ever aa saver award flights available only regular as mileage seats which are useless for ba
Called and they say it was fixed and still no availability. Yyz-phl next week. Is this true
Did you search AA.com?
ba said they saw available on AA
I have been having trouble finding LATAM availability. Is this also a known issue? It used to be easy to find.
You need to search for it on Qantas and call BA.
3 weeks ago there was plenty of award space I could see for LATAM (SCL to JFK/LAX routes) on BA.com and Qantas.com. Then suddenly it all disappeared – on both sites. Has anyone found any fixes? Thanks.
what about project fi wont it be free if you call and use google hangouts?instead of using google voice at 4 cents per minute
Would the “toggle” trick work in the app?
lack of saaver availability is a bigger problem on AA
Dan,
I was hoping for a good workaround . To me this post can be summarized as HUCA, YMMV.
Gave up and called in..Rep (based in their UK reservation center) stated that they are aware of the issue, and that the issue is with American Airlines.
They tried to blame AA when I had a convo with BA on Twitter. That argument didn’t hold up as soon as I included AA in the conversation. The site is still messed up.
Tried toggling, sometimes availability will appear, then toggle to another date and back again and its gone again! Last year they stopped showing CX availability for flights departing less than seven days out, and now this! What’s going on with BA???
I can find AA availability on BA.com but it errors out after entering payment: Sorry, we have been unable to complete your transaction at this time.
Have tried several times with the same result
same experience
availability is phantom on ba.com
Just keep refreshing your page too. Sometimes works.
Strangely, even paid AA flights haven’t been showing up on BAs site lately, never mind award flights.
Paid AA flights booked through BA count as “marketed” flights and add to whatever you need to upgrade tiers in the Executive Club. You can book paid flights through the AA site with your BA executive club details and still get the Avios and tier points, but the flights will be AA flights, not BA flight numbers, so won’t count as marketed flights.
BA really need to get their act together IT wise.
What about economy aanytime?
Will BA have those too?
I called once, and they said no. Should I take that for granted? Or will huca or toggling help.
TIA
Tried several times. Keep getting this error
“Error
There was a problem with your request, please try again later”
Any solution?
Same, can’t even get any search results
I called the BA’s Singapore reservation (super friendly) and was able to book my flight from LGA to OMa which the online doesn’t seem to show but can be seen on AA site as economy mile saver award.
so i have a flight booked with avios that i need to change. its on american airlines. avios is showing no availability to change but aa does. ive tried multiple times to call BA but to no avail. would i be able to use aa as a work around?
Did you call BA in Singapore?
thats the only thing i havent tried yet. just waiting for them to open but was trying all other options before then
Trying to get to Calgary from DFW next May using Avios on American Airlines. Tried the refresh option, calling the BA CS in US, and Singapore. All said there was no availability. Even told them the specific flight number.
so this is STILL an issue in 2020 lol
Also, I know that you said BA charges for each segment. Do they charge the full miles for each segment? Or just extra fees? I’m trying to book AA flights, but will be a total of 3 flights in each direction. Thanks!
And 2022