For quick reply please re imminent trip: Do AA and BA use same record locators?
 

I'm trying to help friends get their college age daughter from Spain to the USA. We've found a ticket Malaga-LHR-DFW-PDX on both airlines. Do AA and BA use the same record locator? I know this is a minor matter in the grand scheme of things, but if they do then my friends will buy from AA. If they don't, then BA to save the potential problem of not having the BA record locator for the crucial first leg of the trip.

Thanks for any quick reply.

No they don't.

Thanks!

They can always get the BA locator from AA and message it over to their daughter if that works

Thanks. Under normal circumstances, that's what I'd suggest they do. But getting through to AA could be a problem right now.

Good point - bottleneck in reaching in AA or any other airline for that matter.
Too bad AA doesn't do it like UA where the operating carrier's PNR is reflected on the reservation online and doesn't necessitate a further contact.
Best wishes to their daughter for a safe journey!

If you have a flight with an AA flight number on BA metal and try to select seats, the website directs over to BA and you can see the BA assigned PNR on that landing page.

IIRC, if you go to Qantas Manage My Booking and enter your AA PNR, it will show you your BA PNR. Haven't done it in a while, so may be off.

Neat trick! Never knew about this - just tried it and it works!

I used it a little over a year ago and it worked then.

Twitter team can get that for you in a truce, but as others have said BA MMB will do it as well.

Thanks again for this useful information, folks. Just to keep things as simple as possible, I think I'll advise my friends to book BA unless someone advises a good reason not to. But it's good to have all this info in hand, just in case.

If you're helping them, and you have AA elite status to help get to an agent quicker in case of a flight irregularity, that would push me to recommend booking with AA. Much more important IMO than the record locator (especially given the Qantas trick).

Good point. Thanks!

Well depending on the fare, one may earn more miles booking on AA than BA. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself :))

Kidding aside, I’d book whatever’s convenient. Hope everyone makes it back safely.