Frinkiac7

Never have had problems booking AA with my Avios before. Got to the airport this morn for an early flight and the kiosk found my reservation but sent me to the counter. Counter guy says he can't find my info and finally decides BA never ticketed my flight. Tells me to hang tight while he calls BA. Meanwhile my wife and I are leaning against the counter tapping our toes. He comes back and tells us BA doesn't even open until 7 ET at which time my AA flight will be closed and he can't ticket us. Tries calling Oneworld but they can't help either. We stand for 25 minutes at the counter until AA guy can finally get ahold of a BA rep, but by now AA tells me they can't ticket me on the flight I reserved and paid for weeks ago and now they will give me a later flight, with connections, rather than the early nonstop I had. So we got in late on top of it all.

Who do I gripe to about this! AA guy didn't know what he was doing, but it seems like BA dropped the ball. I had even called BA the day before to try and get a seat assignment, but the rep told me she couldn't get into the AA system and to just show up at the airport and everything would be fine. This worked in the past so I thought nothing of it. At no point did she mention that I hadn't been ticketed or notice/try to fix this.

Seems like Oneworld could use more communication or cross-reference with their partners as well. When I finally made it to the gate I called BA and complained and asked what they can do for me, and the rep told me to file an online claim and someone would get back to me in five business days.

Not happy about this! To fly. To serve? I didn't get much service, and it was a struggle to even ensure I'd get into the air and flying this morning. Come on, BA/AA!

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Did you ever receive a ticket number from BA for your AA flight? Unless and until you do, you are not ticketed, and AA owes you nothing. It's your responsibility as the traveler to make sure that a ticket has, in fact, been issued.

You will find numerous threads about the differences between an itinerary that is "booked," versus one that is "ticketed." Sounds like BA screwed up here.

unfrequentflyer

I always print out everthing as soon as I have the eticket

HIDDY

If you didn't have a ticket number then BA would seem to be at fault.

Did you book your ticket over the phone?

PanGalactic

That sucks

What time did you eventually leave and how long after the time you were supposed to arrive did you finally get there?

Please let us know how much compensation you get.

ORD-TGU

Sounds like your ticket is "purchased" but not "ticketed". This also happens with revenue tickets, even when booking on the same airline. You can have a record locator, but the true proof is having a ticket number.

iwpingmu

I always check the ticket number besides a recorder locator (while BA calls booking reference)

HIDDY

To most Flyertalkers especially those who redeem with Diamond Club it is normal to check for ticket numbers. It would be unfair to suggest that it is the duty of everyone who has paid for and received confirmation of a flight booking that they should or would know how to check for a ticket number.

I never used to until I became an FT nerd.

HumbleBee

Basically when BA.com doesn't ask u for pax DOB it won't ticket it, as AA requires that info. There doesn't seem to be any clear pattern of when BA ask for it and when not.

You always can check by putting in the BA PNR in checkmytrip.com, which will tell u the AA PNR, which you can use to tell if it's ticketed and change seats etc.

The BA call center is a problem I grope with all the time, you can always get a different country call center, but they are very reluctant to touch an award from a foreign-based acct. Changing the acct address might not help because they sometimes tell u to call the call center in the country the acct was based in at the time of booking. Also, you can't change it back for 6 months. The general BA (US) reservations line will help you, but their opening hours aren't much longer than BAEC>

World2C

ALWAYS get the record locator for the airline whose points you are using (BA for the original poster), and ask them for the record locator of the airline you are flying (AA for the original poster). Do this BEFORE you hang up. I would not wait for the e-ticket (which may never arrive if the original airline drops the ball).

BAHumbug

Good heavens.

BAH

Disco Volante

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B176 Safari/7534.48.3)

Very true. It would never have occurred to me to do this before FT. Now I do it all the time.

angatol

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