Had an additional email appear overnight from BA CS (not the GGL team). I haven't yet replied to the GGL team's last missive (the one posted upthread) so I guess they've internally routed this to the CS team:
"Dear opalfruit
Thank you for contacting the Executive Club - it's nice to hear from one of our Gold members.
I'm sorry to hear you were unable to take your original American Airlines flights on 9 July 2017 and was transferred on to alternative carrier. Please accept my apologies for the disruption to your travel and the inconvenience caused by this.
Unfortunately, we do not have direct access to American Airlines database and when a claim for missing awards is made we need to contact the Partner directly.
With this in mind, I've passed your original flight details to them to investigate your claim. This process can take up to 28 days to complete, but this timeframe is only given as a guide and I'm afraid cannot be guaranteed.
However, I would like to assure you as soon as I hear from American Airlines, I will contact you again.
I do hope the above information is helpful and if you have any further concerns about this case, you are welcome to contact me again by clicking on this link:
www.ba.com/your case
Best regards"
So, they
are now processing my ORC credit, or at least passing it to AA. I think.
I still think BA should have clear rules and guidance around claiming ORC - it really shouldn't be this hard.