Hi, I have a pretty specific question that I don’t think I’ve seen answered previously…

I’m currently AA Exec Platinum, and most of my flying is domestic (US) on American, with maybe 4 international RTs a year - typically on British Airways.

I’ve realized that with my typical flying + branded credit card spending annually I can aim for one of two scenarios:

1. Executive Platinum on AA (200K loyalty points) OR
2. Platinum Pro on AA (125K loyalty points) AND British Airways Silver (600 Tier Points)

Historically I’ve just done #1, but since my BA membership year just restarted, I’ve decided to aim for #2 for 2024. My reasoning is that I value and prioritize lounge access, so #2 still gets me access to first class lounges when traveling internationally (AA PP = OW Emerald, same as AA EXP) PLUS I’d also get free Admirals Club access when traveling domestically in the US once I hit BA Sliver (OW Sapphire). And even though I only fly BA a few times a year, those are always long haul, transatlantic flights so there's additional value for me in having status with them since I'd get benefits on those flights (free seat selection at booking, for example).

Which brings me to my question… in this scenario, all my domestic flights will be on American, but I’ll be booking about half using my AAdvantage # and the other half with my BA #. What I’m trying to figure out is… am I eligible to receive my usual AA EXP (or PP) elite benefits on AA flights that were booked using my BA#? The benefits I’m interested in are complimentary upgrade eligibility, Group 1/2 boarding, and free Main Cabin Extra seats (Preferred seat access and boarding group will improve once I hit OW Sapphire via BA Silver in 12 months, but I'll be flying AA dozens of times between now and then, and so far the two times I’ve booked on AA.com using my BA # I was not on the upgrade list, seat selection was limited, and I was auto-assigned to Group 5 boarding).

An obvious suggestion might be to just ask American… I’ve done that twice now (at the airport) and it was incredibly frustrating even communicating what I was trying to do let alone getting an official answer on policy (I followed up with a call to the AA EXP Platinum desk and they said they’d get back to me, but past experience tells me they probably won’t). To AA’s credit, both times they were eventually able to get me to the top of the upgrade list and managed to fix my boarding group while still allowing the flight to be credited to my BA tier points – but both times it took at least 20-30 mins of arguing with an agent, which sorta defeats the purpose.

I checked the T&Cs on aa.com but can’t find this exact scenario addressed, and I’ve read a lot of similar posts on here and other sites but most seem to be from folks deciding between getting elite status through either AA or BA… again my expectation is I’ll have elite status with both airlines for the foreseeable future, so really just looking for a clear answer (hopefully in writing) telling me what I’m actually eligible for in these scenarios. I know maybe I’m being greedy wanting the best of both worlds, but at the end of the day I'm spending a lot of money with American and even though I'm crediting points to another airline for some flights I'm still an AA elite traveling on an AA flight, which I think should count for something?