I guess this current experience fits the topic.

Booked ARN-HEL-SEA-LAS and LAS-LAX-HEL-ARN directly through AY for September a couple of months ago.

Now we notice the flight back has been changed to LAS-SEA-LAX-HEL-ARN with the flight to LAX arriving 4 hours later than AY002 departs from LAX. I don’t have a time machine so this schedule kind of doesn’t work.

So the codeshare AA metal flight has been ”cancelled” and some robot has made that idiot rerouting. It’s just that the AA flight is not cancelled. AA sells it.

I call AY, and they tell me to call AA since ”AA has cancelled the flight”. AA tells me they can’t do anything about it, only AY can (most likely true). AY offers us one option which is a lot worse than the original flight (tight change with a possibility to miss the already upgraded AY002, and obviously zero time left for lounges).

I wonder what rights we have now that probably AY just stopped offering that particular AA flight as codeshare. Do we have to accept a worse flight (departing 4 hours later), when the ”cancelled” flight is not in reality even cancelled. I would think that technically they are able to put us to any flight from LAS. AY even sells a Jetblue flight for the same day which fits the schedule better.

AY should protect you in cases like these. They are most likely just telling you to cancel and refund, because it's easiest for them. But you do have the right to reroute.

I would suggest you look for a routing that you might be happy with, all AY coded, and call them and feed them the flights.

Thanks for the tip! I booked one for 609 e. I was looking somewhere to spend about one week in March and the price for going to JNB wasn't much more than Economy Flex prices to many of the European destinations on AY right now. I don't really mind spending a few days in Kruger NP :) On the way back the layover in LHR is 8.5 hours on this fare, but lounge hopping in LHR T3 isn't that bad either :)

So regarding the topic, let me share an up-to-date experience on seat selection on BA-operated flights with AY code. In short: no improvement since 2019. I got auto-assigned seats according to my AY+ preference (window seats) on the BA flights, but wanted to change them (the JNB flights are operated on A380's and the auto-assigned seats were on the main deck, but I prefer the minicabin in the rear of the upper deck). The AY PNR opens the booking on BA MMB, where it looks like seats could be selected, but the selection doesn't stick. AY CS couldn't select the seats either and asked to contact BA. The BA Twitter team was able to provide me with the BA PNR, with which seat selection for the BA flights works on their website (I assume that AY CS could provide the BA PNR as well, if you would ask for it).

Hang up and call again (the next day) worked.
I fed them two good options, and the agent agreed to put us back on the very flight we were bumped out from. It’s not a codeshare flight but simply AA coded on AA metal. And in my first call the agent told me on that this particular flight is not available…

A classic example on YMMV.

Flying QR metal with AY flight number, I got boarding group 4 (will be travelling in Y). Sounds like a codeshare disadvantage?

I got whatever group QR uses for OWE, forgetting if it's 1 or 2 (though boarding in DOH is a zoo anyway with no boarding group enforcement, NBO was a bit better). Sounds more like a bug.

OWE's may board QR flights with group 1 regardless of the boarding group printed on the boarding pass. The check-in agent has told me about that a few times when they've printed the BP.

I just looked at my last QR boarding passes, no mention of group at all.

I got Group 3 for QR metal with QR code on last sunday but no problem on boarding with Group 1. Tomorrow's BP also shows Group 3.

With Amadeus CheckMyTrip app being useless nowadays, does anyone have any tips on how I can pull up booking references for codeshare airlines that use their own reference numbers, other than asking customer service?