British Airways is a founding member of the oneworld alliance. At the time of writing, these are the members (with their codes in brackets):

American Airlines (AA)
British Airways (BA)
Cathay Pacific (CX)
Finnair (AY)
Iberia (IB)
JAL (JL)
Lan* (LA)
Malev (MA)
Qantas (QF)
Royal Jordanian (RJ)

*Lan is Lan Argentina, Lan Chile, Lan Peru and Lan Ecuador.

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 when booked under that operating carrier’s code. You can also redeem miles on non-oneworld partners.

BA’s other partners are:
Aer Lingus (EI)
Alaska Airlines (AS)
Caribbean Airlines (BW)
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.

Note that in some cases, BA do sell tickets under a codeshare arrangement and these CAN earn Tier Points and miles at the BA rate – for example, on EI routes in to LHR if you are on a through-ticket (e.g. DUB-LHR-SIN), it’s possible to buy flights under the BA codeshare for the EI-operated flights. In these cases, if the class is eligible on BA flights to earn TPs, you should still receive them.

OpenSkies

OpenSkies is a BA funded start up airline which will operate from the Continent to the US, taking advantage of the recent Open Skies treaty between the EU and the US. Details are limited at present, but they do plan to launch services from June 2008:

- They will operate two BA 757 aircraft which have been refitted with Business (called “biz” in OpenSkies marketing parlance), Premium Economy (prem+) and Economy (econ) seats for longhaul operation
- Initial route is Orly – New York
- BA Executive Club members will earn miles/tier points, however OpenSkies will not be a oneworld member/affiliate. Earning levels haven’t been disclosed yet

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.

The franchise carriers are:
BA CityFlyer (from LCY)
Comair Pty Ltd (South Africa)
Loganair Ltd
Sun–Air of Scandinavia A/S

Note, however, that Loganair departs October 2008, with GB Airways having left in March 2008.

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, we’ll link to the table on ba.com that does a pretty good job of listing all the possibilities by airline and fare code:

http://www.britishairways.com/travel...d/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 transatlantic except on the (few) flights where BA codeshares with them to/from MAN. 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.

A Note About Checked Baggage
BA has quite a simple policy really:

1. If checking in for a BA flight, BA will check your bags all the way through as far as possible to any airline it has an interline agreement with provided the flights are all on one booking

2. If checking in for a BA flight where you are connecting to any oneworld member flight (including another BA flight) on separate tickets (e.g. CDG-LHR on a BA ticket, LHR-ORD on an AA ticket) then BA will still check the bags through for you.

3. If checking in for a BA flight where you are connecting to a non-oneworld member flight on separate tickets…enjoy collecting your bag and re-checking it, because BA won’t be through-checking it for you!