If the AA website displays award space on Airberlin and the BA website consistently shows none, then that tells me that there’s a technical problem that prevents BA from showing it online. The same situation exists for award space on Alaska Airlines. BA doesn’t show it at all while AA does. I suggest you call BA and ask if they can see what the AA website shows.

What the Airberlin website displays is irrelevant. It’s always going to show more award space because its own members have access to more than they provide to partners. But BA and AA should have access to the same amount.

Then airberlin availability is zero on BA even though a little shows up on AA rewards and plenty shows up on airberlin’s own reward site (with huge YQ’s)

You can always call BA (or another airline) to see what award space they have access to. Usually it’s the same as what they show online unless there’s some major issue. For example, BA just doesn’t show Alaska Airlines award space online, so you have to call. I don’t think that Airberlin falls in this camp; what you see is what’s available.

Also airberlin has now imposed even worse fuel surcharges on it’s rewards than BA. IF availability surfaced for ab would BA now impose fuel surcharges on it?

Can you phone in if you see airberlin availability on their own site?

This example (LAX-HKG-DOH-LHR-LAX) would cost 345k in J (460k in F) if priced individually using the zone base charts. Whereas in Y it would 100k on the multi partner or 115k on zone based, still a saving but not a big as premium cabins.

That’s where it gets a little complicated as that chart couldn’t be used for a simple single journey. The comparison therefore isn’t really a fair one to make. The multi partner chart gets a lot more interesting the more complex your itinerary. For 200k avios you can have up to 20k miles in business class, provided you have more than 2 partner airlines on the ticket. Therefore (provided you can find availability of course) you could fly LAX-HKG-DOH-LHR-LAX on a mix of AA/CX/QR in Biz for 200k (300k in F).

Yeah, I should add it. For economy it’s a pretty bad deal. The SFO-LHR example I used above costs 60K Avios (vs 25K nonstop or 37.5K with two connections). But for business or first it might make sense.

Still, business class costs 120K for the SFO-LHR example (vs 75K for nonstop or 112.5K with two connections). It’s not very encouraging.