I’m headed back to the UK to see Liverpool play in November. I managed to get a ticket to the match against Brighton through my local supporter’s club. I also plan to attend the Champions League match against Leverkusen three days later.

Back in early May, I status matched to British Airlines from Delta. This gave me BA Gold status, which is also OneWorld Emerald status. This status gives me (and a guest) access to American Airlines lounges (including Flagship Lounges) when flying domestically. It also provides other benefits when flying OneWorld airlines, including free preferred seat selection and access to Business/First Class lounges.

In order to keep that status beyond the initial six-month period, I have to fly a paid business or first class round-trip (or open jaw) ticket from the US to Europe and back by November 8th. I decided to try and make this fit my trip to the UK as the dates just about worked to enable me to extend my status.

One way to book a cash ticket without actually spending any cash is via the American Express Business Platinum card which offers a 35% rebate on booking with points. In other words, if you book a 100,000 ($1,000) ticket, you will get 35,000 points credited back for a net cost of 65,000 points (about 1.54 cents per point). This is probably the best way to “cash” out your points if you have a large balance. Obviously, transferring to airlines and booking business or first-class award tickets will usually provide even more value, but they are not always available at the saver level, which was the case for my dates as well.

In the end, I booked a JFK-LHR flight on British Airways with a return from LHR to ATL. The flight “cost” 319,000 points, but I will receive over 111,000 points rebated for a net cost of around 207,000. While I wouldn’t normally “pay” over 100k each way to Europe in business class, this trip will ensure I will extend my BA Gold status for another 12-18 months, depending on how BA calculates my tier point earning year (which is frankly a bit of a black box in how it works). Originating from Atlanta would have added over 100,000 points to the cost for some reason. On top of that, there’s no taxes or fees to pay (which can be a lot to and from the UK) and I will earn BA Avios including a status bonus.

I managed to book a Delta flight from ATL-JFK for 8,000 SkyMiles and on my long layover, I plan to visit the Chase lounge at JFK Terminal 4, the TWA hotel in Terminal 5 (for some pictures) and the Soho Lounge in Terminal 8, which is only available to One World Emerald status holders who aren’t flying BA/AA First Class (there’s a Chelsea lounge for that) and appears to be a step above the Greenwich Lounge which I visited last year. At Heathrow on my way back, assuming the ATL flight still leaves from Terminal 3, I can stop at the Cathay Pacific Lounge, the BA First Dining area of the BA Lounge and any other OneWorld lounge that I have time to visit.

As I planned to spend most of the trip in London and just visit Liverpool for the day on Saturday for the match, my wife is going to join me. She’s also booked in business class round trip from Atlanta using Amex points in a similar way, although her flights were a bit more expensive at 360,000 for the round trip (before the 35% rebate). Unfortunately, I could not find anything decent using points in any program for award tickets. We’re going to stay at the Great Scotland Yard Hotel, a Hyatt Unbound property that costs 25,000 points per night in central London which allowed me to use my Category 1-7 Free Night Certificate for decent value for one of the nights.

After my wife heads back home on Monday, I’ll try and visit some more museums in London before taking the train back to Liverpool on Tuesday for the Champions League match, spending the night at the Aloft (using a 50k Marriott free night certificate) and returning on the train to London on Wednesday to fly home.

It should be a fun trip even though we’re flying separately each way. We haven’t been to London together in over 10 years, so we hope to enjoy some great food, good shows and of course, sightseeing. I’ll have reviews of the lounges, flights, hotels and everything else right after the trip.

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