stupenal

I booked an avios award for an AA flight LAX-OGG several months ago for my wife and I. About a month ago, AA decided to cancel the flight entirely, and the BA system automatically rebooked me on an earlier AA flight. Unfortunately, my wife has work that day, and we would not be able to make the earlier flight. I read several threads on FT that said if the flight is cancelled, you can choose to get rebooked on a different flight of your choice, assuming there is space available. Unfortunately, I've already prepaid our AirBNB so I would like to keep my flight on that day. I've found a couple of alternative flight choices - one that leaves later in the afternoon with a stop in HNL, and another option would be for the wife to just take the day off and we'd catch a morning flight to maximize her day off.

When I called BA to ask about my options, I was told that I could only get rebooked on a flight with BA award availability. The system, when the original flight was cancelled, automatically "booked me on the best alternative", which seems a bit honky because how does the system know what is the best for me? I was told to keep checking award availability, and they would rebook me on another flight without charge if there is award availability.

My questions are:

1. Is my only recourse to just keep checking for BA award availability for the flight I want?
2. Should I try calling AA to see if they will be able to rebook me on the flight I want? Or should I try calling BA again?

Thanks for any help.

haroon145

My understanding is as this is before departure and an AA flight if there is one more suitable than BA should request AA open up an award seat for you due to the cancellation

skippythelizard

HNL-OGG is a codeshare on Hawaiian (unless something has changed), so that would not be an option.

As the other poster mentioned, BA can request that AA open space to accommodate a schedule change. In fact, here's a very recent thread on a similar experience : who to call - BA Avios AA flight canceled

Try again, asking them to make the request for a specific flight that you want (and no codeshare flights).

stupenal

Thanks for the suggestion, I didn't even know how to begin with the search terms and didn't see the prior thread. Good catch on the hnl-ogg segment being on Hawaiian, looks like my wife will just need to take the entire day off and we'll see if ba can get aa to release the morning flight seats.