BA miles sham
 

I have just checked the BA website and tried to "book and upgrade" with my BA exec miles for a trip GLA-MIA with the upgrade to world traveller+ (premium economy). The price came in at £933 and 25,000 miles which I thought was a bit steep so I checked just booking a world traveller plus flight direct with no BA miles. This came in at £868!!!!! both off the BA website.

How can this be?? Its a total sham and a rip off!!!

As a regular "upgrade with miles" BA pax, are you sure you selected the same dates? The BA website has a nasty habit of not storing your last search!

Similar problem with a free upgrade
 

I had a very similar problem last year when I tried to use my "free gold upgrade" on WT to WTP. The cost it gave me was greater than the WTP fare whereas it should have been no charge.

Suggest you contact the Exec Club to sort it out, unfortunately due the timing I lost my upgrade but then as I did not pay for it who am I to complain

Had a simmilar experience when booking a LHR-LYS flight last year.

Needless to say, I pad cash and took the cheaper deal.

and it's very easy to find examples where the fuel surcharge + taxes on one of their miles booking costs more than the flight + taxes on an equivalent loco flight.

Depends what you mean by "equivalent loco flight", though.

There's more to choosing a flight than the starting point, destination and how much it costs.

The title of the thread is 'BA miles sham'. BA charge £12 per sector for flights within Europe. An equivalent loco flight would be a flight within Europe. You should be comparing loco base fare with the BA fuel surcharge which is bizarely due when you book a BA flight with miles.

However if you want to play the 'equivalent' game then look at flights LGW-EDI. Exactly the same city pair, served by BA and EZ, I looked at March just for the heck of it. Lets assume that levels of service are also 'equivalent' though they clearly aren't :)

Total extras for BA on LGW-EDI on a miles booking are £32.90.

Total fare on EZ on 27 days out of the 31 in March is £30.99.

As an aside, about the only use for BA miles now is very last minute bookings within Europe, there are some good deals to be had there, as you only end paying taxes/fees + deceptive fuel surcharge.

BA miles in 'not quite what they seem' shocker.

One thing tho, your ticket with AirMiles may have been refundable and flexible

If you have the patience, calling BA Club by 'phone is often very effective. The fare structures are so complex that the website often has difficulty keeping up, and talking to a human [yes, they are human from my experience] can sort out a lot of things.

On my last 3 trips I've had to talk to them, and they have sorted everything to my benefit every time.

Not sure it's the same in Blighty but the last time I called the BA Club (in Bremen, I think) to book an 'open-jaw' (LHR-YVR / LAX-LHR) the told me that since I could make the booking on-line they were going to have to charge me for it. After a bit of discussion he agreed that in fact, I couldn't book a redemption open jaw on-line and agreed to waive the charge.

We then discovered that although I could see 2 economy seats on the LHR-YVR leg, he showed only 1 seat in F. Apparently BA's system lets GCM book something their Executive club employees couldn't. So all he could book for me was the LAX-LHR which he did. I went back on line and booked the two YVR seats.

Later, when I got the e-ticket I noticed that he had charged me for making the booking, even after agreeing to waive the charge. (Are they on commission?). A second call revealed that the wouldn't give me the money back, they had no record of him waiving the fee and anyway since I could have booked the LAX-LHR on-line he shouldn't have waived the fee anyway. :ugh:

Frankly I find the 'club' people, in Bremen at least, to be a waste of oxygen. In my view BA's free tickets (which cost me over 1000 francs in total once taxes and surcharges were included) to be not worth it. I now only fly BA when I'm told to by the people buying the tickets.

I was gold, now silver - heading for blue.

in my experience BA miles are wasted on euro flights and on upgrades from WT to WT+. They are best used on F & J bookings on the USA or transatlantic routes as these offer the best value for money when using miles.
For Euro flights AIRMILES are best but BA have blocked the sales of these from LHR t% to Glasgow and Edinburgh. You can fly BMI from LHR or BA from LGW.

25000 BA miles would also get you a WT+ to CW upgrade which represents far better value for money when comparing a WT+ fare to a CW fare.

I've got 26,000 air miles left with BA, using those on a trip Gatwick to Orlando it still came to £374, the same trip with Virgin with no airmiles was £399.