Prospero

Atlantic Joint Business (AJB) carriers American Airlines, British Airways, Iberia and Finnair currently offer unbundled Economy fares for sale on selected routes between Europe and North America (and vice versa). These fares are branded as Basic Economy on American Airlines and British Airways, Basic on Iberia, and Light on Finnair.

So before purchasing these fares it is important to understand what is included and what is not.

Included

• A hand baggage allowance of one carry one plus one personal item
• Allocated seating when check-in opens. Seats are allocated by the airline.
  Note: customers travelling with infants or those with additional needs will still be able to choose their seats for free at the time of booking. Family seating rules are applied to seat allocation, meaning children will be seated with an adult when booked in the same reservation
• Changes for a fee
• Avios and Tier point collection

Not included and other aspects to be mindful of

• No checked baggage allowance
• No free seat selection. Fee to choose a specific seat
• Tickets are non-refundable
• Final boarding group

There are however additional benefits available to Executive Club Bronze, Silver, and Gold card holders such as free seat selection, free checked baggage but these are not offered across the board and do vary depending on which airline you book with and travel on.

These are outlined in the charts below. The general premise being free seating is driven by the operating carrier whereas checked baggage benefits is driven by the marketing carrier.

Other Tier benefits such as priority check-in, fast track security, lounge access, Avios tier bonuses apply in much the same way as they do with standard fares.

Where you see a credit card symbol in the charts below, this means there is an option to pay for the additional service.









On a positive note, armed with tier status with the Executive Club and a firm grasp of the variable benefits contained in each airline's offering, it is possible to cherry pick the 'freebies' to your advantage. The following table outlines the combinations of free baggage benefits according to operating and marketing carriers.




Other resources and related threads
AA/BA/AY/IB Long Haul basic unbundled / HBO fares announced [archived]
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...er-thread.html [hosted in the AA forum]
Light fares to North America [hosted in the AY forum]

wilsnunn

Thanks for putting this together Prospero, I have long thought that one would be most welcome here and had written a few bits down. You have done it infinitely better than I would have ever been able to!

tobsw

This is wrong. Free luggage is driven by operating carrier. The JBA has changed their criteria. Both seating and luggage is driven by operating carrier. See https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/30365110-post150.html

Prospero

The checked baggage benefits for Bronze, Silver, and Gold card holders are still driven by the marketing carrier but you also need to take into account the operating carrier to figure out the end allowance. The table you linked reflects this.

flyslow

I haven't flown AY long haul, but have been able to choose the seat for free on Light fares on short haul as BA Silver. Are rules different for long haul?
Also worth noting that BA charges Silvers for exit row seats on LH flights

Mwenenzi

Thanks for work. Does make it a lot better understanding. But AJB threw me off (no airlines in title)

For bags as this (status) effects many (like myself) any way to incorporate like post 150? Or another image. What the real end checked baggage allowance is always hard to determine
Guessing the dark card like graphic in the tables is "no - nothing - not applicable"
Can OW Emerald, Sapphire, Sliver, Ruby text be added below the BA status card graphic to make it clearer for us non BA (in)frequent flyers.

As this is joint venture I still wonder why the benefits and inclusions/exclusions are so different depending on which airline flys(operator) and will airline sells (marketed) the ticket.
What happens with codeshares?

wilsnunn

This threw me off too, but then I realised that it says:

Prospero

You are of course correct. The Finnair chart has now been updated.

More detail here: Light fares to North America

I use Keynote to create the slides. It's a wonderful piece of software but since the last update automatically optimises the image export for iOS viewing. Consequently, the image quality has diminished so apologies if the credit card symbol isn't as clear as I hoped it would be.

Brisbane Road

Wanted to reference a point I made on the old thread for this page here: AA/BA/AY/IB Long Haul basic unbundled / HBO fares announced

When booking an AA flight on BA.com, it appears to allow you the extra baggage and seat selection (if Silver or above). So in essence, if you're booking one of these and have the option of BA or AA, the latter will give you both, whereas BA won't give you checked baggage. The chart above is incorrect in my experience when doing this as you do get free seat selection on AA that includes Main Cabin Extra, even exit rows which BA as a Silver would make me pay for. And when the product offerings are very similar, it's definitely worth thinking about AA > BA.

The important point about this is that BA still sells the Basic economy or regular economy option on the website for an AA flight. So needing a bag for this trip in November, I selected regular economy on American at an Ł80+ (Ł40 ew) uplift not knowing these benefits. As it doesn't state these when you book there's no way to know, so I phoned back refunded the flight and booked the basic economy fare instead saving me Ł80, which is a very good saving when you're considering booking one of these in the first place.

tobsw

Exactly. So this, which you wrote, "For example, booking an Iberia Basic fare on BA metal means Silver and Gold card holders will receive seat allocations plus one item of checked baggage free of charge, " is wrong. Flying on BA operated flights in basic economy, your tier is worthless in regards to checked-in baggage allowance. This is independent of the marketing carrier.

Also, on non-stop flights it´s straightforward. It get´s very complicated on connecting itineraries. From my experience, on connecting itineraries it depends on the first operating carrier.

Dan72

The JBA basic fares are a bit of a minefield and the table's a great help. Many thanks Prospero. I know there have been grumbles about the basic fares, but they can work well, particularly when armed with the information above. I got a ridiculous fare to DC for a weekend trip. With no baggage, I got all the benefits on BA, inc a bulkhead seat with BAEC Gold.

I see above that American is down as not offering priority boarding. Never done a transatlantic JBA basic fare with them, but thought I got priority boarding on some basic domestic fares on AA, is that an error in the table, different rules for JBA fares or is my memory letting me down?

Flying Yazata

Have I understood it right: booking any JV cheapo Y over the pond as OWE and it being BA marketed is the worst option, except for Avios and TPs? So there's no checked luggaged with any operating carrier, when it's BA marketed. And if I remember right from the original thread, there was also on BA flights some benefit over BAEC for holding OWE issue by some other OW carrier, like e.g. QR or CX?

corporate-wage-slave

In reality I know that IB and AA operated services give baggage allowances to BA marketed flights. I can't really reconcile the different pointers above (and obviously I don't have personal experience). Clearly flying BA with BAEC gives seats, lounges, First Wing and what not. For your last sentence, as far as I know, BA metal gives the same benefits to OWE, the only difference I can think of is any local arbitrage on miles (etc) crediting, but usually BAEC tends to do well in these apple-pear comparisons.

Flying Yazata

Many thanks to CWS!

I'm just thinking of doing a commoner trip to the States at some point and thinking of booking HEL-LAX (once it hopefully returns in 2021) as BA by AY or try World Traveller with the Queen of the Skies from LHR, before they vanish (done First and CW, never WT or WTP - such a TP snob), as BA by BA. However I realised that BA coding excludes checked luggage with the cheapest tickets, even if it wouldn't be BA operated, but AY to LAX. But good to hear AA and IB at least would let me check in a bag with gifts/souvenirs on my trip as a commoner (well, a pleb with a status card), even when it's BA ticketed and marketed. OTOH, I highly doubt I will do it on AA, since I want to select my seat in advance and not as an extra per diem.

Too bad can't book IB by BA and use the OWE status. Or was this perhaps the exception: BA metal, coded something else and OWE from some other OW carrier - you get the luggage as per the status of your OWE card?

It's funny: done First, done G-EUNA as BA1 and done upper deck on the 747-400, but still haven't done any TATL as a pleb on any carrier. So it would be an educative experience and remind me that I must at all cost avoid doing it again.

jwhite9185

Last time I flew AA on a basic fare, I had group 2 boarding as an emerald. This was November 2019.