Same day flight change benefit on AA with OW Emerald?
 

A good friend is BA Gold/OW Emerald. Next week she is traveling RIC to HKG via ORD. RIC to ORD is on AA metal in first with ORD to HKG on CX in J. The RIC-ORD leg departs at 0558. She is not excited about the early flight. There is a flight that departs at 1020 and would give her plenty of time to make her connection. My question is with her OW status can she do a free same day flight change to the later flight assuming there's availability?

Thanks

Nope.
Her BA status does not grant extra benefits. Will be as the ticket t&c's. So pay $ to change if that is the ticket t&c's.
Some airline's grant such benefits & more to their own elite status frequent flyers, but it is not a OW benefit.
Link--->https://www.oneworld.com/ffp/emerald-privileges

AA does offer free same-day standby to all OW élites, which is handy when you want to take an earlier flight. You can refer to https://www.aa.com/i18n/plan-travel/...y-travel.jspIn this case, however, it is risky because of several reasons:.
1) You are supposed to cancel the RIC-ORD flight first to prevent a no-show, but AA may refer the pax to CX, and CX might not allow that without charging the change fee and fare difference.
2) What if the 1020 flight becomes sold out? As a standby passenger, you can only receive a confirmed seat at the airport.
3) Some AAgents say that same-day stand-by only works on 001-plated, purely domestic tickets, although in reality I have used it on 160-plated tickets before.

IME same day change only works when it's a single leg US domestic flight. Connections cause the computer systems no end of grief. I suspect an airport agent could do it, but the whole point I presume is to arrange the flight change from the comfort of home/hotel...

The answer is that the friend can't use SDC, having nothing to do with status. She is simply not eligible for SDC because she is flying RIC-HKG. The only international route for which AA permits SDC is JFK-LHR.

This is not to suggest that an AA agent at RIC will not simply make the change for her and waive the change fee. That is a fairly common courtesy, but it does have to be done in person at the airport.

But if youre already at the airport, you might as well take the flight, and enjoy the lounge in ORD