Reader Email: American Airlines Denies BA Flight Credit – What To Do?

A LoyaltyLobby reader alerted about an issue with crediting British Airways flights to American Airlines AAdvantage, and how to resolve the problem?

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Here’s the email from the reader:

I have recently started flying again within Europe. I am a lifetime platinum AAdvantage member. All the flights from September and October flown on BA were credited with the correct mileage to my AAdvantage account but since the middle of November for the below flights, the mileage has been declined. One of these between LHR-OPO and LIS to LHR was identical to that in September/October for which I received mileage. I cannot obtain an answer from American as to why?

Additionally, I have a pending claim for mileage for a flight between London and Madrid return which was BA flight number on an Iberia plane.

Has anybody else had this situation and can explain what is happening?

AA’s Denial:

BA had indicated to AA that these flights would have been credited to their Executive Club, that was not the case per reader:

Yes I believe I do but haven’t used it in many years. When I made the booking I gave my American Advantage number and it appeared on the booking and on the tickets.

AND

Yes checked my BA Executive account and no transactions or avios credits since 2018.

BA’s IT Update:

• British Airways Website Functions Still Partially Offline, Several Avios Transactions Missing
• British Airways Executive Club Still Down Close To Week After System Upgrade?
• British Airways Executive Club Still Offline A Full Day Beyond Maintenance Schedule
• British Airways Executive Club Maintenance Impacting Member Accounts Through 17 November 2021

British Airways loyalty system went through an “upgrade” in November that took the entire platform down for more than a week, and there have been plenty of issues with non-credited flights ever since.

The BA’s system that approves or denies partner credit requests must also malfunction. The question is how to get someone at AA to fix this issue and credit the missing flights?

A few years ago, I went through something similar, and Americans didn’t relent and credit the flights until I filed a Small Claims case.

The correct way to begin this retro claim process, after a denial, is to file a complaint with DOT’s Aviation Consumer Protection Unit (you can do it here) and indicate both American and British Airways as the other parties in the case. I would attach both AA and BA account statements that show that these flights have not been credited to the latter despite what American claims.

If this doesn’t resolve the issue, small claims or MCOL are probably the way to go. It certainly will get AA’s attention.

Conclusion

Getting a retro credit for partner flights has become easier in recent years. Remember when you had to mail or fax the boarding passes and eticket receipts for the claim even to be considered?

I believe that the reader’s issue is due to notoriously bad BA IT and the Avios platform update that they were doing for weeks in November that led to issues for getting BA flights credit to their own Executive Club.

I hope that AA resolves this BA flight credit issue.