BA Silver / OW Sapphire benefits on AA booking

[PhilO]

Hi, Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere but I’m BA silver and looking to so some internal US flights for work using AA. When booking directly through AA, how do I tell them that I’m OW Sapphire so that I can access the benefits of luggage/main cabin extra that are of use to me?

Thanks in advance.

[NorthernLass]

I think you can add your BAEC number to the booking. If it doesn’t cost any more, can you book via BA? That way your status will be on your boarding pass and you’ll automatically get free luggage/seat selection/lounge access. I don’t know if it’s as straightforward if you book via AA. I think there’s an anomaly in that you can access US lounges as BA Silver but not as OW Sapphire!

[PeteM]

The advantage of booking directly via AA is that you’ll be able to manage your bookings via the fundamentally superior AA digital channels when things go wrong and buy upgrades, for example. You can easily enter your BAEC number during your booking process on aa.com and all the usual benefits will appear on their MMB once you’ve booked. Would always recommend booking directly with them over BA.

[SamG]

If it’s just the internal flights you can’t book via BA anyway. But as soon as you add your BA number you’ll get all the benefits (including lounge access as @NorthernLass says)

[Luca M]

I have done so in Feb. It picked up the Ow status immediately, including luggage allowance and seat selection even with their cheapest tariff.

NB: it is true that it will be easier to manage your booking directly on AA but also be aware that it will not be visible at all on your Ba profile until the points/Avios post. This is due to AA using a different reservation system than most of the rest of the OW partners (where you can see the reservation done on any of the airlines from the different platforms like RJ, QR, BA etc. In any case, once you have made the booking, you can download the AA app without creating an account, but can load your reservation as a guest and manage it that way.

[PhilO]

Thank you all for the very helpful comments. 🙂

[Lyn]

You didn’t mention lounge access, but just in case you aren’t already aware of it, one of the benefits of BA Silver is having access to American’s Flagship lounges as well as their Admirals Club lounges.