Reader Keith asks:

One of your latest posts, about the Starwood to BA bonus, made me wonder whether you think it would be worth moving the miles from Starwood to BA even if I have no current plans to use an award. I generally park miles in Starwood, but a 30% bonus seems tempting, so I was thinking about moving over enough for a business class ticket. I’m not sure how I’d use them, but I live in Chicago, so I wouldn’t think redemption options for BA would be that hard.

I wouldn’t. BA miles just aren’t a great place to park miles, or a value even with a 30% transfer bonus. These are all great bonuses if you need to top off a BA account, or need an award for which only BA miles are a good solution. But otherwise keep your points in Starwood. Allow me to illustrate.

From Chicago to most of Europe a business class award will run you 120,000 British Airways miles. Normally you’d need 100,000 Starwood points to get there (transferred over the course of two days you’d get 125,000 British Airways miles.). With this promo it takes 80,000 transferred over two days, and you wind up with 130,000 BA miles.

Without any promo you can transfer 65,000 Starwood points to Cathay Pacific and get enough AsiaMiles for a business class ticket to most of Europe on Cathay’s partner… British Airways. (And that’s after the October devaluation of AsiaMiles — it used to take only 50,000 Starwood points for a British Airways transatlantic business class ticket departing the U.S. East Coast.)

So, no, I wouldn’t speculatively transfer Starwood points out to BA and park them there.

There are times this promo would be very useful, but BA’s award chart is generally pricey enough for premiunm

Transfers of Starwood points to British Airways generate a 30% bonus from January 1 to March 31, 2008. The bonus applies both to the base points transferred and to the 5000 bonus points for each 20,000 transferred. So 40,000 Starwood points become 65,000 BA miles instead of the usual 50,000. (In order to maximize your bonuses, don’t transfer more than 60,000 Starwood points in a day.)

Through February 29, Diners Club transfers to British Airways come with a 50% bonus. I long for the days of the 100% Diners transfer bonuses to BA, but those are long gone. At least they’ve stabilized at 50% coming along regularly.

Also through February 29th is a 30% bonus on Hyatt transfers to BA and a 30% bonus on Hilton transfers to BA.

Through October 31, Chase has a new compelling offer for the British Airways Visa.

In addition to 20,000 miles with first purchase, they throw in a companion ticket. They used to offer a free ticket with purchase of a full fare ticket, useless for most. The new offer is one companion ticket that is honored with purchase of any published fare.

Full details of the companion ticket offer are here.

The companion ticket needs to be booked by January 31, 2008 for travel commencing (and outbound flight completed) by May 31, 2008.

The card comes with a $75 annual fee, and I’ve never seen a fee waived the first year offer for it, but for those who can use the companion ticket it’s well worth it.

Update:Gary from Free Frequent Flyer Miles cautions:

Looks like the British Airways offer is targeted:



This offer is only available to new cardmembers applying on or after September 13, 2007. The BA Visa card application must be made from the special links provided in the emails sent to selected British Airways Executive Club members and British Airways registered customers. Applications made by any other means, including ba.com, will not be eligible for this offer.

My own take, though, is that the link in question is the one I provided. My read is that the email was sent to targeted folks, and the link from that email is the only way to qualify from the offer, as long as that email is used the offer will be honored. But that all remains to be seen, anyone trying it please report in the comments whether you are able to book a companion ticket.

Nearly four years ago British Airways stopped letting just anyone sign up for their frequent flyer program. Riiff raff, non-full fare paying passengers be gone!

They’ve apparently, quietly, reversed course.

British Airways is once again letting anyone enroll in their Executive Club program. You no longer need to use this Starwood promo link or similar ones, eg from Diners Club, to sign up for the program.

The usual offer for a British Airways Visa is 15,000 miles with first purchase, and the card comes with a $75 annual fee.

Now there’s an offer of 20,000 miles with first purchase, though still with the fee (unlike the United, American, etc. cards there’s no first year fee waiver).

As one Flyertalk member wrote

As you only need 25k round trip to upgrade from WT+ to www.newclubworld.com fully flat beds, and the fares start at $650 rtn incl tax with no co-pay, AND you earn 125% of miles on the WT+ ticket you purchase (making the net cost of a US – Europe rtn upgrade around 15k miles) then yes it’s a great deal.



Absolutely worth the $75.

If you don’t already have a British Airways account, signing up for the Visa will get you one.

British Airways is earning a million pounds a year off its pay-service helplines.

British Airways has been criticised after it emerged that it is making at least a million pounds a year by charging UK customers to telephone its helplines,

..

British customers pay above-national rates to call the 0870 numbers. BA makes about 2p a minute for every call to its bookings, reservations and customer care phone lines – including those dealing with lost luggage.


With 15,000 customers calling every day, this works out at just over £1 million a year in revenues if each call is three minutes long. However, so deluged has the call centre been in recent weeks that many customers have been left on hold for well over 20 minutes.

British Airways actually makes money by losing your luggage and having you call to follow up.

Those of you in the U.K., search for free numbers to call here.

British Airways has an interesting sale running from the U.S. to the U.K. (You may need to be logged into a British Airways Executive Club account to see the page.)

Coach (“World Traveller”) from several cities for less than $400 roundtrip — okay, so far so good, this is frequently available in late October, November, and December (though the price cutting starts early this year).

But perhaps more interestingly, World Traveller Plus — their premium economy product, think something like U.S. domestic first class — is available for about $585 roundtrip. That’s an upgrade that seems worth it to me.

I’d guess the hassles flying in and out of London are affecting BA’s bookings…

In addition to Diners Club, Starwood, and Marriott offers, you can earn 30% additional British Airways miles when transferring Radisson Gold Points to BA by July 20, 2006.

(Hat tip to Free Frequent Flyer Miles.)

Some time ago British Airways stopped allowing people to open frequent flyer accounts. Strange, I know.

You had to book a full fare coach ticket to be eligible to join Executive Club (and then discount coach tickets still only earn a fraction of flown mileage).

At the time I advised folks to just go ahead and open British Airways accounts ‘just in case’. You never know when you might need one, such as when Jaguar was offering 10,000 miles for a test drive (and since you can combine 4 accounts in a household, you could earn 40,000 miles from the simple promotion).

It turns out that another way to get a British Airways account is to get a co-branded British Airways Visa. After all, the points you earn from that Visa need somewhere to go.

But apparently they’re also letting Diners Club card members sign up for BA accounts in order to transfer Club Rewards points into British Airways miles. And I can’t imagine there’s any way to check who is and is not a Diners Club cardholder.

Looks like the 50% bonus on Diners Club transfers to British Airways is back, valid between May 1 and August 31, 2006. There’s no information online yet but it’s mentioned in the program insert that comes with March bills.

Not as good as the old days where the bonus was 100% during the summer, but better than a hole in the head and a welcome relief considering recent cutbacks in the Diners Club Club Rewards program.

I’ll be taking advantage of this one, topping off my BA account for some transatlantic premium class flying… especially since the alternate uses for Diners Club points have dwindled with the departure of United, USAirways, America West, Northwest, and Continental from the program.

Update: Details are available on the British Airways website though not yet on the Diners Club site.

British Airways is offering 40,250 bonus miles for transatlantic roundtrip flights in first or business class through April 30. Registration required and offer is available to residents of the US and Canada only.

As NotiFlyer observes, BA is trying to make itself relevant to North American flyers by marketing the way that these bonus miles can be used on partner airlines for domestic travel.