I help a lot of families use their miles and points to book family vacations and even with depressed business demand for premium seats during the summer, finding three or more business class seats on the same flight often poses a challenge. British Airways is starting a new 5x weekly service between London Heathrow and Austin on its new 787 at the end of March and has released generous amounts of award space in all three cabins–economy, premium economy, and business class–on nearly every flight in August.
Yes, British Airways does have a $574 fuel surcharge if you fly r/t between Austin and London and you also have UK departure taxes of $284, but a $917 fee is fast becoming the new norm on award bookings and while I would avoid some of it by originating in Ireland and saving over $200, this still represents a tremendous deal over the current going price of $9300 r/t (which I do expect to drop by more than half as summer approaches, but even at $4500 using miles still makes sense).
This space just popped in today and I only see it during the month of August, so better to move sooner rather than later if you have the points.
Also note that American Express is running a 20% transfer bonus on British Airways Avios through 31 December 2013.
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