Irregular Operations
Irregular operations come part and parcel with air travel. Expect the best but prepare for the worst. In other words, allow plenty of wriggle room in your travel plans, think twice about short connections at MIA during the hurricane season, or at JFK in winter, or at ORD at any time other than spring and fall, noting Chicago's spring and fall seasons while lasting no more than a week each Mother Nature is inclined to blast Chicagoland with her wrath during these short seasons.

Although AA tend to be very helpful rearranging flights, they do often work on the basis of getting you onto the next available service irrespective of fare class. If you look at Expert Flyer before approaching the Admirals Club agent then you can be proactive in making suggestions. Note, in rebooking AA flights, there is a risk of instant upgrades ending up as business or worse, economy. If the next available flight is sold out in first, AA are often open to requests for a seat on the following flight that has seats available in first class. This may involve joining the stand-by list. Working with gate agents or AAdmirals Club staff pays dividends. It pays to check revised booking class(es) with the agent. This is your only opportunity to ensure the flights are rebooked into the same class as your original booking (A and/or P), and your Tier Points post as planned.

Original Routing Credit
ORC allows you to claim credit for your original routing as you originally booked it in the event you are rerouted on flights that earn fewer Tier Points than you originally booked.

If you booked with BA on a 125 ticket it's in the T&Cs, and there will be no push back should you need to submit an ORC claim, though you will have to claim manually and it will take a few weeks to clear. Occasionally, if the irrop was at the very last moment you'll get the ORC anyway and automatically.

The only stickiness relates to 001 ticket and rerouted on another oneworld flight (typically a re-routed and/or downgraded AA service) which gets less TPs and Avios. In that scenario if you claim ORC, BAEC pushes it to AA (since they are the ones who "pay" the Avios) and their view can be that you get what you travelled and a refund for anything you didn't travel. However, many comments over the last year have reported some success with 001 tickets so please do submit a claim.

Remember that whatever happens to keep your boarding passes, a note of the new PNR, the BA PNR, and the BA ticket number. And don't forget to claim your miles credit for the service if you end up travelling on another alliance, giving the number at the gate or check in, that form of double-dipping has long been considered acceptable.

For more information on ORC please have a read of the very informative guide written by dylanks which can be found here https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...r-s-guide.html

POUGs & AUPs
Most airlines will offer promotional (POUG) or airport upgrades (AUP) prior to the flight. A common query is whether the TPs and avios credited post flight will be at the originally booked level or at the upgraded level. It is well established that BA will credit POUGs and AUPs at the upgraded level so certainly you can benefit from increased crediting as well as the more comfortable cabin. However, a number of oneworld airlines do not credit at the upgraded level and only credit at the originally booked level. So whilst you may benefit from the better cabin and seat, you will not earn increased TPs and avios.

In general for most oneworld airlines no extra upgraded TPs are given for POUGs and AUPs, but there do seem to be exceptions. In order to help provide some clarity here is a list of oneworld carriers and the POUG/AUP approach. "Yes" means you earn the upgraded TPs and avios, "No" means the flight will credit at the originally booked level.

AA - No (kiosk upgrade)
AY - No (POUG)
BA - Yes (AUP and POUG)
CX - Yes - but CX bid upgrades are a no
KA - Yes
IB - No (online bid)
JL - Yes on domestic (done at a standard supplementary amount), other JL flights won't get additional benefits
LA - No
MH - No (similar to AUP)
QF - No (Bid Now), however there seem to be cases where higher TPs were awarded
QR - No (AUP style)
RJ - Yes (bid system) - RJ often do not post TPs / Avios anyway and may well require retro-claiming.
UL - Yes (bid system)

Please note that the above is based on posted experiences on the board. Where others have received upgraded TP please do not take it as a guarantee that you will also do so. For some airlines the above may only be based on one or two experiences, so the result could well be because of dodgy IT on the day rather than deliberate.

Also see this thread for reference https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...-airlines.html