My guess is that American may be raising
the minimum cost of an award flight to British Airways, hence the price increase for zone 1 short - haul flights in the US market only.
Not exact matches
You can use Hilton's online tool to see the maximum points
cost of an
award stay, but it won't show you the
minimum amount required — which is the
award price you want.
So, while the
minimum cost of a North American
award flight on other major airlines is 25,000 miles (no matter what the city pairs are), if you use Avios and the distance
of your flight does not exceed 2,000 miles, you can get a great deal.
A property I know very well, the Category 5 Andaz West Hollywood would
cost 20,000 points for an
award night so the
minimum number
of points you would have to purchase for a free night would be 16,000......
According to the
award chart, that should
cost a
minimum of 7,500 Mileage Plan miles.