I am able to convert my credit card travel points to BA miles and with an upcoming trip to Zambia I am thinking of doing it. I have never flown British Airways before and I was wondering what peoples experience booking flights with them using BA miles is? Any blackout periods to worry about? Are few seats available for points bookings? Can I book flights for myself and my brother using my points only?

I intend to ask all of these questions to British Airways directly but I though I would check here for some unbiased opinions as well.

Thanks!

I booked flights from London to Windhoek in first class for myself, my son and a friend with no problems whatsoever.

I already had a BA frequent flyer number so you will probably need to get one set up if you don't already have one. I transfered points in from AMEX (I believe they currently have some sort of bonus for transferring points to BA that you may want to take advantage of). The process was actually quite simple, I transfered the points on the AMEX website and they showed up in my BA account less than a minute later. BA's website had how many award tickets were available on the different flights in real time so it was relatively easy to arrange the three tickets. I believe I logged into my BA account and got to the book award travel section, it was pretty easy to figure out.

The one thing you should be aware of is that BA will still have you pay for the various taxes, fuel surcharges and miscellaneous fees. On our tickets that worked out to about $900 per person (If purchased the tickets would have cost about $12,000 per person so about 7.5% of the ticket value).

Hope this helps.

quote:

Originally posted by Chez:
I am able to convert my credit card travel points to BA miles and with an upcoming trip to Zambia I am thinking of doing it. I have never flown British Airways before and I was wondering what peoples experience booking flights with them using BA miles is? Any blackout periods to worry about? Are few seats available for points bookings? Can I book flights for myself and my brother using my points only?

I intend to ask all of these questions to British Airways directly but I though I would check here for some unbiased opinions as well.

Thanks!

I used Alaska Air miles to book with partner British Airways for my trip to Namibia and Zambia in September 2010. I had no trouble booking. BA released award tickets 355 days out like clockwork and i called the Alaska Air partner desk first thing in the morning 355 days out for each leg. I got 1st class seating the whole way.

I am presently trying to book for June/July 2012 and I'm having a fair amount of difficulty. They are not releasing seats on a predictable basis like a year ago. I am booked but I'm premium Coach on a couple legs awaiting an upgrade to Business Class.

No one seems to know if British is just getting stingier or if the Olympics in England 2012 may be affecting the award seat release.

Chez,

I think at this point I've used mileage to fly to Africa about 10 times all on BA. Using Gracy Travel to arrange the flights and do all the calling for me is well worth the fee.

You need to start the process 355 days out and you need to jump on it that first day seats become available.

I recommend you call Gracy and let them go over your options with you.

Mark

just what mark said

I've flown BA twice to frica and while the experiences were good flying with them, any attempt at trying to book a flight at any level with their airmiles has SUCKED. In fact they just raised their CC fee one can use to collect miles and I CANCELLED that due to the higher fee demand and lack of being able to use any miles I have banked with them. good Luck tho.