Avios Redemption University – Lesson 11 – Low tax redemptions with US Airways

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This series of articles covers the best ways to get maximum use for your Avios points. Other articles look at, for example, airberlin, TAM and Iberia amongst others. All of these airlines charge a fraction of the taxes and surcharges asked by British Airways for redemptions on their planes.

Save money by redeeming on US Airways

US Airways joined the oneworld alliance on 31 March 2014. If you are keen to minimise the amount you pay in tax and fuel surcharges, they offer an interesting option.

US Airways

These are the routes currently flown by US Airways from the UK and Ireland. All require 80,000 Avios in Business Class.

Take a look at the taxes number (these figures all relate to Business Class return flights – remember that BA would want roughly £550 for a BA or AA flight):

Dublin to Philadelphia – £28 (says £49 then reprices, see screenshot)

London to Charlotte – £194 (say £215 then reprices)

London to Philadelphia – struggled to find but imagine as above

Manchester to Charlotte – £165 (says £186 then reprices)

Manchester to Philadelphia – £165 (says £186 then reprices)

Edinburgh to Philadelphia – £162 (says £185 then reprices)

Glasgow to Philadelphia – £161 (says £170 then reprices)

US also flies Dublin to Charlotte and Shannon to Philadelphia over the Summer.

Now, you may never have wanted to go to these places. However, US Airways has major hubs in Philadelphia and Charlotte, and can connect you from there to pretty much anywhere else you want to go.

Philadelphia, in particular, is close to New York and the East Coast and it is an easy connection by air or rail.

It is worth noting that the taxes are especially low if you are just flying TO the UK from the USA. Charlotte to Heathrow has tax of just £1! Compare that to £260 for a one-way British Airways redemption from the US in Club World. This is the same £1 price that airberlin charges for one-way business class redemptions from the US to Germany.

The easiest way to search for US Airways availability is to use the usairways.com website. You don’t even need to log-in to search for miles seats. Make sure you tick the ‘US flights only’ box and the ‘use miles’ and ‘direct flights’ boxes.

If the US website shows availability at the 50,000 mile level then ba.com should be able to pull up the same seat.

Ignore any days where US wants a higher figure – these are premium awards which you cannot book with Avios. Make sure you click through from the calendar to the summary page on usairways.com to double-check that business class seats are there – sometimes it shows availability at the 50k level when it actually involves a connection.

Category

oneworld alliance partners

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Manuel says:

7 May7 May 06:56

It is becoming real good the Oneworld!

If we Europeans had ways to generate Avios!
- Rob says:
  
  7 May7 May 07:24
  
  Long-haul BA revenue flights from Europe through London can be very cheap and good way to collext avios. Flying PAR-LHR-PVG return in economy for £450 gets me 13k avios. Direct flight LHR-PVG came out nearly double price, so not bad if you’re starting or can reposition from Europe. Not as good as collecting avios on UK credit cards but sill not too bad.
Martin says:

7 May7 May 07:09

What will be more interesting is how availability becomes given BA notoriously poor availability in CW on many routes.
- Rob says:
  
  7 May7 May 08:30
  
  The key question is when BA starts equalising the taxes, which it will.
  - nux says:
    
    7 May7 May 08:38
    
    I think the question is when BA starts to apply YQ/carrier surcharge to US flights, as it does for AA and BA flights TATL.
    
    BA looks to apply the correct and same taxes (depending on origin/destination) for AA, BA, US flights TATL.
    - Rob says:
      
      7 May7 May 09:19
      
      Exactly. At the moment, US is not adding fuel surcharges to BA flights either. This won’t last forever.
      - nux says:
        
        7 May7 May 10:54
        
        Yes, just pointing out that this is not a tax.
      - Andy says:
        
        7 May7 May 13:43
        
        Is this via booking on the US airways site where they are not adding fuel surcharges to BA flights? with Dividend Miles?
      - Rob says:
        
        7 May7 May 14:28
        
        Yup
  - Martin says:
    
    7 May7 May 09:18
    
    Hope you are right
Kiran says:

7 May7 May 07:14

This is good to know! I hoped that BA would reduce taxes on long-hall redemptions after Virgin did but apparently they don’t think it is needed. I hope that they don’t convince other OW partners to increase their taxes too.
Martin says:

7 May7 May 07:16

95k avios plus £174 each flying GLA – PHL – TPA which could be a good holiday route for those who fly to Florida for family holiday from Scotland, a good alternative to BA into TPA
Paul says:

7 May7 May 07:22

BA fees are really quite scandalous as is the availability. This certainly an option along with Aer Lingus.
Rob says:

7 May7 May 07:29

Philadelphia is only an hour and half train ride from New York if you want a budget East Coast holiday!
- James says:
  
  7 May7 May 07:34
  
  Or for real budget East Coast you can go to Great Yarmouth!
  - mrtibbs1999 says:
    
    7 May7 May 08:16
    
    Very good. We do seem to define Budget as J to the states here!
Gabe says:

7 May7 May 08:03

Could you then fly from one way from dublin and the get a direct on the way back to london to save on the extra trip and still get the tax savings?
- Rob says:
  
  7 May7 May 08:29
  
  Yes, works fine.
Gordon says:

7 May7 May 08:08

How do you check flights which involve a US connection without the BA site defaulting to their own metal. For example, Dublin to Los Angles via US connecting say in philadelphia. Will the Ba site not simply default to BA, Dub to London to LA
- Rob says:
  
  7 May7 May 08:29
  
  Not necessarily. Best bet would be to find the seats on the US site first, so you know they are there, and then those dates on ba.com. If that fails, either call BA to book (with phone booking fee) or book each leg separately and take the risk of missing the connection (or, more precisely, the risk of missing the connection and US telling you to take a jump).