You can currently buy Avios for 1.37 cents each through a miles-transfer promotion.

Update at 5:49 PM ET on 12/20/13: Many commenters are saying they've had problems with aa.com showing "phantom award space" on airberlin flights. I have never had that experience, so I was surprised by the reports, but I'm sure they're accurate. My advice changes in light of this info.

Did you miss 20k Miles (or Less) to All of South America All Year yesterday? That post is a competing trick with this one, and it might be an even better deal for you.

Chicago to Santiago "should" cost 30,000 American Airlines miles each way in economy.

I noticed in August 2012 that on my Avios award flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles, my boarding pass printed with "Priority AAccess," granting me priority security and priority boarding.

This (unintended?) benefit of British Airways Avios awards on American Airlines flights is still alive.

American Express Membership Rewards transfers to British Airways will come with an automatic 20% transfer bonus from now through December 31, 2013.

It's transfer bonus season with Membership Rewards.

Qatar Airways awards are now searchable and bookable at ba.com and bookable by calling American Airlines. This is huge news because Qatar has an excellent route network from the US to the Middle East, Indian Subcontinent, and Maldives.

As announced on the oneworld site, Qatar Airways will join the oneworld alliance on October 30th. This is great news for those with large American Airlines AAdvantage or British Airways Avios balances.

Until October 15, you can convert 20,000 Starpoints to 31,125 Avios, a 56% transfer bonus.

Ordinarily 20,000 Starpoints transfer to 25,000 Avios, the same 5,000 mile bonus you get on every 20,000 Starpoints transferred to all 1:1 airline partners. Until October 15, British Airways is giving a 25% bonus on all incoming transfers of hotel points to Avios.

You get unlimited stopovers on awards booked with British Airways Avios

But you can't get any free oneways on awards booked with British Airways Avios.

Huh? How can that be?

For some people, those concepts are hard to untangle, so let me state the concepts as clearly as possible.

A free stopover is the absence of a flight. It is being in a place. Let's use yesterday's Anatomy of an Award as an example.

American Airlines has a great promotional award price to Hawaii this fall of only 15,000 miles each way in economy if you book by September 13 and fly September 11 to December 17.

American has several services to Hawaii.

Honolulu <-> Dallas, Los Angeles, and Chicago
Kahului <-> Dallas and Los Angeles
Kona <-> Los Angeles
Lihue <-> Los Angeles

How good is this deal? Are there currently better deals to Hawaii?

British Airways' two daily flights between New York-JFK and London-City on all-business-class A318s have incredible award space next June.

It's a route and plane that fascinates me, and one way for 40k Avios + $438 seems like an OK deal for a fantastic product, level of service, and the opportunity to arrive at London-City instead of Heathrow or Gatwick.

What's different about the flight? What is the award space picture? Is it worth the fuel surcharges?

The Flight

British Airways operates two daily flights between New York-JFK and London-City.