pauldb

Ok sorry I’m being imprecise there. After a schedule change (avios booking on AA) I have been reaccomodated on flights that had no reward availability. Dealt with by BA after speaking to AA about eligibility. That’s not to say BA booked me into a revenue bucket, no. Frankly I don’t know what happened: if AA provided reward space to BA or if AA add the flights to the booking and BA re-ticket.

pauldb

I’m saying it may be useful to speak to AA to confirm eligibility for a refund according to their policy (60 minute time change). But yes BA would have to process the refund.

marconess

As a point of reference I was booked on a BA Holiday with all my flights on AA (BA codeshare).

My flight was changed so my connection in Miami was legal but a bit shorter than I would have felt comfy and I didnt want to risk it. I called BA Holidays with flights I preferred and had absolutely no issues changing. Was very impressed.

Geordie405

This is precisely the situation I had recently where I had a significant schedule change on an AA flight booked via BA using Avios. BA were certainly amenable to a change but there had to be underlying award availability. They would not book me into a revenue bucket (as this was an AA operated flight) nor would they consider going via their OneWorld liaison desk to get AA to open up additional awards.

Ultimately I was rebooked as I wanted and with no additional charges but it meant travelling a day earlier with an overnight stop at DFW.

orbitmic

Ba can indeed contact AA to ask if they will release award seats to reaccommodate a passenger. They may or may not accept and of course if they do, that would have solved the problem of rebooking. However, as KARFA says, if they don’t, aa will typically refuse to reaccommodate award pax onto paid buckets and are usually strict about it. Baec will similarly not rebook pax from partner award buckets to partner paid ones.

also the AA rules are that refund is only allowed from 61 minutes (60 is not), and from 61 to 120 minutes that is only in the form of a voucher, whilst refund to the original form of payment is only allowed from 121 minutes.

In short, i don’t think the AA rules actually work that well for the op here.

BrianDromey

The difference will be that you were on a revenue fare, so that makes the availability situation quite different. I feel posters are confusing a few scenarios into one here. Firstly this is a BA ticketed award on AA metal. In this scenario AA requires award bookings to be rebooked into award buckets. If there is no award availability, you can't rebook. AB handle this differently when they are the operating carrier. Redemptions can be rebooked onto any flight with available seats.

What the OP might have found is that when the ticket comes under AA airport control is that they are very accustomed to dealing with IIROPS due to a multitude of reasons, either ground holds or having a number of very large hubs in the North East of the USA. If the OPs connection was getting tight I'd imagine he would have had a lot more options for reaccomodation on the day. Its also worth bearing in mind that US airlines generally prefer smaller aircraft at higher frequency, so if his flight was cancelled at the US hub, he wouldn't be waiting too long.