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Why are BA tier points not being given on fully flexible American Airlines tickets?

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Two readers have been in touch this week to point out something strange with the American Airlines earning table when you credit your flights to British Airways Executive Club.

Here is an example taken from ba.com from the London to New York route, although the same applies to other routes too:

American Airlines tier points on British Airways

As you can, the screenshot shows zero tier points earned if you have a fully flexible Business Class or First Class ticket.

When I was first shown this, I assumed it was an error. (Yes, I know, we all thought BA’s IT was infallible.)

However, the second reader had actually taken a flight in fully flexible Business Class, and sent me a screenshot from his BAEC account:

American Airlines tier points on British Airways

In this case, he had flown on Finnair but it was booked under the American Airlines flight code.

As you can clearly see, he was in ‘D’ class (fully flexible Business Class) which earned Avios but no tier points.

This is totally bizarre and makes no sense. I am still convinced that it is a BA IT error, but potentially a deeper problem than just a display error in the BA tier point calculator.

This issue will hopefully get fixed and reverse itself automatically, but for now you should keen an eye on your BA account if flying on fully flexible American Airlines tickets.

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Category

American Airlines and AAdvantage

Comments (33)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Charlie says:
    14 May14 May 03:11

    There’s something odd going on – I took a flight LHR to US last week in R class (Club World) and it’s showing up as “Club Europe” on my BAEC transactions.

    • lumma says:
      14 May14 May 04:50

      I’ve had the opposite in the past, LHR to Tallinn showing up as Club World. Was secretly hoping it was going to be randomly a long haul plane but it wasn’t

  • Alan says:
    14 May14 May 03:16

    Did the reader (or yourself) contact BA to clarify? What did they say? Agree it seems completely bonkers if this is a policy decision. Unfortunately what has posted does seem in-line with what’s in their table so doesn’t seem like an obvious IT glitch, perhaps more someone misunderstood when drawing up the table?

  • Alan T says:
    14 May14 May 06:13

    There are threads on this on FT and in the HfP forum. There has apparently been some acknowledgement that it’s an error, via GGL, but I had to make a number of requests, finally asking a FT BA contact by PM to sort it after others failed.

    I had one leg on AA, in J, that was not a BA codeshare and it did not initially post TPs or Avios!

  • Bluekjp says:
    14 May14 May 06:53

    The same zero tier points also shows on all AA internal flights in J,D and F classes on the BA calculator.

  • Sin says:
    14 May14 May 07:37

    Flights from Iberia to other airlines still not posting. They are impossible to deal with

    • Alex W says:
      14 May14 May 17:50

      Try Twitter, Iberia are quite responsive on there!

      • Jonathan says:
        14 May14 May 22:53

        Create a twitter account just to get a CS response ?!?

        At least none of us are Donald Trump ! Although Elon Musk has said he’ll reverse Trump’s ban from twitter when he’s in control of the social media giant

  • SamG says:
    14 May14 May 08:25

    It’s an error with the data for sure. The tier point calculator is presumably driven from the same source as the logic that awards them. Not the first time. Quite why it takes BA so long to sort it out is another story !

    • AJA says:
      14 May14 May 10:21

      I think it’s this, the TP & Avios calculator shows what the flight will earn so if there is an error in the background the tables on BA’s website will also show the error. Or it could be the other way around the tables we see generate the TP and Avios that are actually awarded.

      As for BA being slow to correct the error it probably involves some IT expert having to amend 25 000 rows of coding in the background for each error so they work on the coding for each route as they become aware of the issue. In the meantime they let it lie as it means they avoid paying out Avios and also it seems to affect only AA J and F fares so not their core flights despite earning revenue via the joint revenue sharing deal.

      • Dubious says:
        14 May14 May 15:17

        This is a good example of poor customer service (to continuing the theme of the recent articles on this topic).

  • MrTipple says:
    14 May14 May 08:47

    BA have confirmed this to be an IT error when it happened to me on AA flights last month. Get in touch with them and they credit you with the correct amount of points.

  • Yona says:
    14 May14 May 09:00

    So they started to give points to those using their 1-4-2 vouchers but give none to those that pay.

    Makes total BA sense

    • Niall says:
      14 May14 May 09:10

      As much sense as a 1-4-2 voucher 😉

    • Smid says:
      14 May14 May 11:15

      I’ve had my old 2-for-1 voucher’s first flight cancelled, and they booked us on another flight, we got the TPs for that one (not the non moved return flight).

      • john says:
        14 May14 May 18:54

        I recently got Avios and tier points on a 2for1 that was rebooked onto different flights also. Beforehand it correctly stated that none would be due. My Avios and tier points posted a couple of days after each flight.

        My daughter had her outbound post a couple of days after the return but not the return yet. Strange!

      • Fred says:
        15 May15 May 09:41

        I’ve had the same experience after being rebooked twice. Not complaining ofc as the points and Avios are very welcome.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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