GeezerCouple

We had booked almost a year in advance F from USA to Norway and back for last year, on BA with AA points. All set, double checked relatively frequently.
Then (at least not at the very last minute), I saw a schedule change. Problem was, the first flight of the two flights home now departed before our cruise was even scheduled to dock, never mind allowing time to disembark, taxi over, etc. We had allowed quite a few hours originally.
And it wasn't even our planned routing.

It turned out that the first flight, direct to LHR (from where we had a non-stop home), had been... discontinued. Poof.
Bottom line, we threw a fit (gently, of course!), and lo and behold, we suddenly had tickets on a NON-partner airline to get us to another city where we could at least get to LHR the same day. It meant three flights rather than two, but at least those flights actually existed.

Point is, because BA totally discontinued the flight we had been ticketed/confirmed on, they did indeed do "what it took" aka "made magic happen" to get us vaguely close to our original schedule and routing, even though it included a flight on a total non-partner. We obviously don't know "how" they "purchased" the two tickets for us on that flight (cash? "professional courtesy" or airline equivalent? or ?).

But we did have to claim our luggage, before and after the middle non-partner flight, as there was, so they claimed, no way to arrange the baggage straight through. Not a problem.

GC