Crediting BA flight to my AAdvantage account
 

Upfront warning that this is potentially a dumb question. I have an itinerary I'm considering booking on BA. It's a BA-marketed flight on BA metal that I can only book via BA (or pay a substantial price difference with AA or others), but because of my unexpected AAdvantage status progress this year I'd like to credit the flight to my AA account for some extra EQMs to help me clear the next status hurdle. I have both an AAdvantage account and an Executive Club account (with no status and not much prospect of any status in the future).

I know how many EQMs, EQDs, and RDMs I'll get for the flight from looking through the AA partner wiki (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...es-2017-a.html), but what I'm not clear on is what I have to do to make BA and AA credit my AA account for this flight. If I book via my BA EC account, will it automatically credit to EC and that's the end of it? Is there an election or change I make after I've booked? Should I book it from a "guest" profile and just fill in my AAdvantage number? I'm considering this BA itinerary vs. airlines I like much better only because of the potential AA EQMs, so I'd just like to be sure I'm not going to bungle it by not knowing what I'm doing.

If anyone could give me the explanation you'd give a 10 year old, or point me to a relevant thread on the forum, it'd be much appreciated!

Change the frequent flyer account associated with the reservation. I don't know if BA will let you change it online, but a reservation agent should be able to.

Unless the OP derives some benefit from having his BAEC number in the PNR initially, I would just make the booking as a guest and select AA as the FFP to which the flights should be credited. Why go through the (usually minor) hassle of trying to change the FFP?

Exactly. That's how i always do.

Don't log in to the BA account , but just make the booking normally

Then go into BA's manage booking facility and can add the AA number

This is the correct and very simple answer. Don't log in to your BAEC account. Make the booking and enter your AAdvantage number at that point of the booking.

It is possible to have two FFP numbers attached to the reservation (if you want to use Avios to upgrade for example) but this increases the probability of the wrong program being credited.

As someone who has had a real headache getting flights properly credited, the safest thing by far is to follow the advice above and log in to BA as a guest, although that may mean spending some time filling in some blanks, and credit the flight to your AAdvantage account in the first instance. Once your BAEC number is in the reservation, it is difficult to remove it, and methods I've used in the past successfully (using the AY website or having the agent at the airport change it) nowadays don't seem to work. A BA reservations agent on the phone should be able to do it, but you risk a long hold listing to that horrible music.

Telephoning BA is a painful experience indeed.

You can be logged into your BAEC account and still credit the miles to AA. During the booking process you have the option of choosing which BA partner airline to credit the miles to and then entering the respective program's FF number. I just booked a flight doing this two days ago. But as @LonghornSF says, save your boarding pass. I would also save my e-ticket receipt. Earlier this year when an IB flight segment didn't post my AA account, AA requested a copy of the e-ticket and boarding pass.

For BA flights, if I need to change the FFP associated with the booking, I've always used Finnair.com and use their Managing booking tool! I found Finnair's interface to be cleaner, less cluttered and simpler to use than BA's elegant but labyrinthine-like interface. Your BA booking reference will work on Finnair.com.