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British Airways is once again offering some fantastic First Class fares from Inverness to Chicago, starting from about £1,621.

Availability is wide open at that sort of price from August 2018 all the way through to the end of the current schedule in May 2019.

The best way to search is to use Google Flights to quickly see the full range of dates, and then switch to Momondo or Skyscanner to get the lowest prices.

The Miles

It probably goes without saying that you can earn a healthy amount of Avios and Tier Points if you credit BA First Class flights to British Airways Executive Club. You can easily use the BA Avios calculator to calculate what you would get.

More interesting (in my view anyway!) is crediting BA flights to Alaska Mileage Plan. As you can see below, the earning rates for BA flights credited to Alaska are great, and First Class is no exception:

Yep – that means you earn 450% of flown Miles for the cheapest First Class tickets!

Let’s look at a comparison against how many Avios you would earn – and note that I value Alaska Miles as being worth 1.6-1.8p each, which is considerably more than the 1p I value Avios at:

~22,000 Avios (worth about £220)

Or

~39,500 Alaska Miles (worth £640+).

If you opt for Alaska Miles you would get nearly 40% of the cost of the ticket back in Miles – if you value them at a similar rate to me.

In case you’ve forgotten how good Alaska Miles are, 42,500 gets you a one-way on Cathay Pacific Business between anywhere in Europe and Hong Kong.

To work out how many flown miles a flight is, just head to Great Circle Mapper.

Bottom line

It’s difficult to argue that BA offers one of best First Class products in the world , but it’s still a comfortable and stylish way to fly (the champagne is genuinely world class!). These fares are lower than Business Class often is and you can earn a huge haul of Alaska Miles too!