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BA or American?


Suzanne123
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I am looking for R/T PHL/AMS Premium Economy flights next spring for a tulip time cruise. I found flights on American that are operated by British Air. If I book on American, the total is $50 more, so not a deciding factor. I don't have any FF special status on either airline. Is there some advantage to booking through either BA or American?

I'm fine with paying whatever they charge extra to ensure an aisle seat.

 

Thanks.

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I am looking for R/T PHL/AMS Premium Economy flights next spring for a tulip time cruise. I found flights on American that are operated by British Air. If I book on American, the total is $50 more, so not a deciding factor. I don't have any FF special status on either airline. Is there some advantage to booking through either BA or American?

I'm fine with paying whatever they charge extra to ensure an aisle seat.

 

Thanks.

I go with the airline providing the service mostly unless I have a good reason (ff points/rewards etc). BA on their own routes allow you to add several legs together in a multi-city trip that is cheaper than the basic trip ONE WAY fare. Can not get the AA site to do the same thing. Can you pick your seat from AA from beginning or only 24 hours before. That does not work well for those of us on a ship (hard to know if you will have internet and it does get very crowded on the day that many are trying to select seats in the computer room -- also so many do not have much "ability" and computer aide is going crazy). Also I would think seat requests would go first to BA customers then to partner airlines -- less to go wrong the more direct to provider you are. I would go BA if cost is less or at least not significantly higher.

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I am looking for R/T PHL/AMS Premium Economy flights next spring for a tulip time cruise. I found flights on American that are operated by British Air. If I book on American, the total is $50 more, so not a deciding factor. I don't have any FF special status on either airline. Is there some advantage to booking through either BA or American?

I'm fine with paying whatever they charge extra to ensure an aisle seat.

 

Thanks.

I'm curious as to the routing. American flies PHL-AMS nonstop but doesn't (yet) offer premium economy on those flights - they're installing PE seats on some planes but not those serving that route, at least for the time being.

 

If you're flying PE on BA via London, then I'd book with BA. Booking the AA codeshare through AA can be annoying as you need to get BA's record locator and use it for checkin etc. (They use different systems.) Also, presumably you know that the final short flight between Heathrow and Amsterdam will be in ordinary coach, and you'd need to pay a second seat reservation fee for that segment if you want to guarantee a specific seat.

 

I'd also mention that you could buy regular coach seats on the AA nonstops and pay a little extra to get a "main cabin extra" seat. These have more legroom (BA premium economy gives you 38 inches of pitch, AA MCE gives you 36) than other coach seats, but the bump in price is nowhere as much as it is from economy to BA's PE. You wouldn't have to pay either the higher PE cost to BA, nor would you have to pay to reserve seats on AA. It's a pretty short flight from Philly to AMS, so might be worth looking into.

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Two very easy ways to save money on BA flights.

 

1) Sign up for AARP at $16/yr. You can save up to $200 per ticket on all transatlantic flights by booking through AARP's portal onto the BA site. There is no age limit to AARPs registrants (I've had it since my 20s for this reason and it has saved me thousands of dollars)

 

2) Sign up for the British Airways Chase Visa card. It costs $95/yr but saves you 10% off the entire fare. Comes with a very decent sign up bonus at the moment and after you spend $30k in a year you get a companion voucher. This means when you use miles for one ticket you get a second for no additional miles, you just pay the taxes and fees.

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Not quite ready to book yet, but thanks all for the tips and advice.

Suzanne -- I was just reading on AARP page that BA gives a discount on British Air roundtrips. Must be booked for 2018 from AARP portal page. It seems to me that for economy get about $65 off and for BC up to $200 off. I hope this helps you. I am doing a multi-city (essentially a one way trip with a little side trip to Victoria Falls from Cape Town South Africa then up to London and home to BWI) Cheaper the more flights I have in the package it seems. So weird. London to Baltimore alone one way is @$1700. Cape Town to Baltimore by way of London (nothing flies direct) is about $1,400 and Cape Town to Victoria Falls to Johanesburg (South Africa) to London to BWI I have seen as low as $1,190 and basically it is all in one line with a zag over to Victoria Falls. Work it 3 ways to sunday and you sometimes find weird things. I would suggest not waiting too long though. We did the tulip river cruise 4 years ago and it was really very crowded time to travel. 3 week season basically for the best flower show! Flights sell out.

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I would think the non stop AA flight would be more convenient than flying through Heathrow. AA does not have PE service on that route, only MCE, but for that short of a flight MCE may be acceptable and far less expensive.

 

Booking Multi leg flights on AA are as simple as any other airline. Look on the far right side of the screen under the flight search function and you will see a tag that says "advance search ". Hit that tag and the multi leg screen comes up.

 

On a personal note, if MCE is not available on an AA A332 or A333 plane, I would not fly regular Economy class on that plane. I would pay for the PE upgrade and do the multiple leg flight on BA.

 

As far as pricing, BA's costs for early seat selection will make them more expensive than AA most all of the time. They even charge BC customers for early seat selection.

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I too am trying to make this decision. We're flying Phoenix-London, so British Airways/AA is pretty much the only nonstop option.

 

Question on the AARP discount for BA. (Thanks for that tip, by the way!) The website seems to indicate the discount applies to the AARP member and family members flying together. But when I try to book for our family of 4 in premium economy, I am getting the $139 off our total price . . . not $139 discount per person. Is there a way to get the discount for each family member?

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I too am trying to make this decision. We're flying Phoenix-London, so British Airways/AA is pretty much the only nonstop option.

 

Question on the AARP discount for BA. (Thanks for that tip, by the way!) The website seems to indicate the discount applies to the AARP member and family members flying together. But when I try to book for our family of 4 in premium economy, I am getting the $139 off our total price . . . not $139 discount per person. Is there a way to get the discount for each family member?

 

The discount should be automatic to all on the booking. I've never had a problem with +1s using the AARP discount including those with different last names so I don't think the "family member" situation applies, never done more than 2 passengers on it.

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One word of caution when either booking directly with AA or through the cruise line. AA inherited a bunch of A333 and A332 from USAirways. Being the junk Airlines USAir was they had ordered many of those planes with straight Economy and BC seats. Many of those planes are still flying the European routes for AA and they have virtually no MCE seating. The only seating in Economy with extended leg room, on those planes, are the bulk head and exit row seats. Some of the A333 have been retrofitted with MCE.

 

Check your seating chart , for your flight, and do not assume MCE will be available for your flight if flying a A333.

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