Flying Round-Trip To Israel On Air Berlin For 40K Starwood Or 47K American Express Membership Rewards Plus $81 Tax: A Tutorial

Update #2: Commenter “Baruch” was able to call BA and get them to book a ticket to Israel with an overnight connection in Germany, thereby saving the extra taxes incurred when booking each leg on separate tickets.

Update: I’ve added information for business class (from 50K Avios+$20 tax one-way) in the addendum at the end of this post.

Related posts:

-Get A 30% Bonus When You Transfer American Express Membership Rewards Points Into British Airways Avios! (Transfers must be initiated by tomorrow, 01/14!)

-Convert 20,000 Starpoints Into 31,250 British Airways Avios (Transfers must be initiated by today, 01/13!)

-Chase British Airways Visa-Get 50,000 bonus Avios for spending $1,000, an additional 25,000 bonus Avios for spending $10,000 in 12 months, another 25,000 Avios for spending $20,000 in 12 months, an award companion cert for spending $30,000 in a year, plus 1.25 Avios per dollar spent everywhere.

-Which Miles To Use To Fly To Israel?

-BA.com Overhauls Their Award Search Engine!

-Getting To Israel On The Cheap With BA Avios And Air Berlin

-Save $400 On Fuel Surcharges To Israel By Booking Avios Rewards Via Iberia Instead Of British Airways!

-Booking With Avios? Check Those Surrounding Airports!

-Using BA Miles To Fly In Business Class For An 80 Minute Flight Can Make Sense.

-Flying With An Infant With Miles In Business Or First Class? Start Collecting Air Canada Miles Or British Airways Avios

-Short-Haul Flights: BA Avios Versus LAN Lanpass.

-BA Miles Are Now Avios…For Better Or For Worse.

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I’ve blogged numerous times about redeeming British Airways Avios for travel on Air Berlin and broke the news that BA stopped charging fuel surcharges on Air Berlin in September.

People have had trouble finding the Air Berlin flights on BA.com so hopefully this article will empower those people to hone their searching skills.

I’m posting this now so that people will be able to lock in these rates via the expiring AMEX and Starwood transfer promotions.  Even if you don’t have enough points you can borrow either of those point currencies from AMEX of you can read on to learn about the valus of Avios+Cash options.  The AMEX and Starwood promotions will both likely be back at some point in the future, but if you’re looking to travel in the next few months and the Air Berlin flights work for you then it will make sense to lock those promotion now.

More after the jump…

British Airways charges Avios based on the length of each segment (with some exceptions) as follows:

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