oneworld / Franchises / Airline Partners
British Airways is a founding member of the
oneworld alliance. At the time of writing, there are eight members, however Aer Lingus have confirmed they will be leaving in 2007.
The members (with their codes in brackets) are:
Aer Lingus (EI)
American Airlines (AA)
British Airways (BA)
Cathay Pacific (CX)
Finnair (AY)
Iberia (IB)
Lan* (LA)
Qantas (QF)
*Lan is Lan Chile, Lan Peru and Lan Ecuador. However Lan Ecuador is NOT a member of
oneworld as it is only partially owned by the Lan group.
On the plus side, Malev Hungarian (MA) and JAL (Japan Airlines -JL) are on course to join, as are Royal Jordanian (RJ).
Within
oneworld, there are three different elite tiers. This is an effort to identify a common elite standard across the different programmes.
They are:
Ruby
Sapphire
Emerald
There is no level in the BA programme that equates to
oneworld Ruby. Ruby allows business class check-in, and that’s pretty much it. It does NOT grant lounge access.
Sapphire is equivalent to BA Silver and gives access to business class lounges, and business class check-in.
Emerald is equivalent to BA Gold and gives access to first class lounges, and first class check-in.
BA Premier members are also given
oneworld Emerald status.
Partners
BA also has a number of partners that are not a member of
oneworld. These partners allow you to earn miles, but not Tier Points. You can also redeem miles on non-
oneworld partners.
BA’s other partners are:
Alaska Airlines (AS)
JAL (JL)
SN Brussels (SN)
The most recent departures from these partnerships are Emirates and America West – you can no longer earn or redeem BA Miles on these airlines.
Franchises
Sometimes when you fly on BA, you’re not actually flying on BA. In several parts of the world, BA has franchises. You’ll still get a BA flight number, the crew will still be in BA uniform, the planes will still be in BA colours. In fact, with some franchise operators like GB Airways, the service is often better than BA themselves!
The franchise carriers are:
British Mediterranean Airways Ltd
BA Connect (was British Airways CitiExpress Ltd)
Comair Pty Ltd (South Africa)
GB Airways Ltd
Loganair Ltd
Sun–Air of Scandinavia A/S
Earning Miles and Tier Points on oneworld and Partner Airlines
Earning miles and Tier Points on partner and
oneworld airlines isn’t as simple as on BA flights. In fact, depending on what fare class you’re booked into, and what cabin you’re in, it can be quite complicated. Rather than explain the “
n” number of possibilities, I’ll link to the table on ba.com that does a pretty good job of listing all the possibilities.
http://www.britishairways.com/travel...e/public/en_gb
Most of the time, you’ll need to travel in Y B H to earn anything other than 25% of miles. Business tends to earn 125% of miles flown. First tends to earn 150%. For Tier Points earning, see the “Tier Points” section of this thread, although the most important point for those hunting Tier Points to note is the '2000 miles rule'. If you can make this work for you, status gets a great deal easier - it can make an RTW trip especially lucrative, for example.
One very important point - you
cannot earn miles or Tier Points, or redeem miles when flying on AA between the USA and the UK. This is the same for AA people, they can't earn miles or redeem miles on BA services between the USA and the UK. However, they can on BA flights between the UK and Canada or Mexico. This is due to UK/US government restrictions.
Note: You only get the Silver/Gold tier bonus on BA and QF – no one else.
It may be somewhat heretical to say in a guide to BA (!), but if you travel a lot on
oneworld flights (especially in cheaper classes), you
may be better served by completing a 'Platinum Challenge' on AA and crediting the miles there. There are more details on the
AA Board for all the ins and outs of doing this and getting to
oneworld Sapphire relatively quickly.