Figured I would quickly confirm that my most recent ORC worked as it should. A quick summary:
- was scheduled to fly DCA-PHL-PHX
- upon checkin at the lounge at DCA, was pro-actively rerouted DCA-STL-PHX as PHL-PHX was showing a lengthy delay (2+ hours)
- had some issues with the seat on AA, so asked them to verify that ORC would be applied, they confirmed they have a process with BA and it would not be an issue since I made a booking and was rerouted due to IRROPS
- made an online request with all relevant details after DCA-STL-PHX posted, received an email from the GGL the next day (convenient how a general request gets rerouted to them!) letting me know that the request was in process, and that it could take up to 28 days
- had another discussion with the GGL list on another topic and asked about it. I was told that AA has 20 days to respond before BA can ask again
- in day 19, the tier points in my account were updated with ORC
While there are no guarantees in life, my experience is that ORC on AA seems to be reasonably credited to BAEC when the routing changes due to AA and a bit of polite persistence. That seems fair as you should receive for the route you paid for and attempted to fly. The case where it would not happen is when you request a different routing for your convenience.
I'm still puzzled why several others seem to not have similar experiences, unless this is a relatively new improvement by AA.