About six weeks ago I explained how to manage your British Airways Avios award bookings to make sure you get your elite status benefits.
The idea is that when you book an award using British Airways Avios (and short-distance non-stop awards are a fantastic value in the British Airways program, any flight under 650 miles in length costs just 4500 points each way), your BA frequent flyer account number gets added to the reservation.
But you might be a US Airways or American Airlines elite frequent flyer. So you will need to get to know the Royal Jordianian website.
If you book a US Airways flight using BA’s points, something I’ve been doing a lot of lately, US Airways agents are generally unwilling to change your frequent flyer number in the booking. And you can’t do it yourself on the US Airways website.
So you want to do it yourself.
The usual trick has been to use the Finnair website. But recently the Finnair website has just been erroring out for me, and for several readers.
Fortunately, there are other ways to:
- Update your frequent flyer number to make sure you get benefits like priority boarding and free checked bags, as well as access to premium seats.
- Get confirmation numbers for the airlines you’ll be flying on, without picking up the phone and calling them.
I’ve tried the Qantas website, but it always wants to stick my Qantas frequent flyer number into the booking.
Scott Mayerowitz flagged for me that the Royal Jordanian website works for this.
Once you go to Royal Jordanian’s website, choose Manage Booking.
Enter the confirmation number that British Airways gave you when you booked the award, and the passenger last name.
The system will pull up your booking. Click the red button ‘Update My Contact’
There you can update your frequent flyer number to whatever program you wish to have attached to the booking.
The site even gives you the confirmation number(s) of the airlines you’re flying.
The only wrinkle? The Royal Jordanian website will require you to enter your passport details in order to save the updated information.
Do this, though, and your frequent flyer number of choice will be reflected on the operating airline’s website.
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If you go through all that, does TSA precheck still work?
@Axi
If you get your FF number in and it is the carrier operating it, no problems
e.g., I have my AA Plat number in it and I got TSA pre
.
You can do it through the Saudia site as well, no need for passport info
.
you can call BA on a late night and let them do it
.
you can call AA or US (which ever is operating it and whichever one you have status with as hold times are short) and do it
.
I am not really sure I want to give all my “secure date” including passport details to Royal Jordanian at this point, but everyone is welcome to do so.
The last trick is that once you have enough miles in the family, I book my tickets with my wife’s account as a “friend” whose trip is being booked for, without a BA number in my details and then call US to add my info.
.
I must have mis-stepped somewhere.
Went to Manage my Booking on RJ, and “Update Contact Information”. No need to enter in any Passport/info, the FF boxes are super easily found right at the top.
However, after trying multiple times to add my AA number .. each time I continue to get:
“The system is temporarily unable to process your request. Please try again. (9102)”
Flights don’t leave until March, so hopefully I’ll get it squared away somehow by then :-). Thanks for the tip!
This is because BA, QF, AY, and RJ are hosted on Amadeus. Any airline hosted on Amadeus that has an EOS agreement with BA (usually alliance partners) will be able to pull up the record using the Amadeus record locator. CX, JJ, and soon (or maybe already) IB are hosted as well, though haven’t tried their websites for this purpose.
I don’t suppose you can get auto-elite upgrades using this trick, can you?
Great. Now they’ll be the next carrier to “patch this”, like AY/QR have already done.
@Aviators99 – No. These awards are still booked in saver inventory.
any equivalent trick for skyteam ?
Never had a problem adding aa# on ba booking. Just indicate you are not traveling on ba booking then search for pnr in aa/us with your name and flight details then you add your aa# to the pnr. Works every time.
You can change your FF# at check-in on usairways.com.
@aviators99 sadly no
My reservation status on AA.com for my Avios booked AA flight has shown “unknown” for more than 2 months now. I am not flying for another 3 months, should I be concerned and try to fix this or just way for BA to fix?
rl – Where do you do that? On the AA website, BA website, where? It sounds really easy but I can’t figure it out! Thanks!
Just like the Finnair website, US Airways FF#s are not selectable… annoying since US joined oneworld months ago…
I’m getting the error message when I try to save: “Please provide us with a birthdate. (1429)” even though there is no spot to provide a birthdate.
@Steve For flights operated by AA for which you would like to use your US DM#, this seems to work: First, access the reservation via the RJ website using the BA record locator number. Then, clear the FF# entirely. Then, use the AA record locator to access your reservation–it will then allow you to add any oneworld FF#, including US DM.
Oh, great, now the miles and points blogs have gone all Buzzworthy-“one weird trick” style…
“I applied for this credit card bonus… and you’ll never believe what happened next!”
So I called BA, and they replaced my BA Executive Club # with my AA Plat # on my US Air flights in which I used BA miles, no problem.
I have called US Air 3 times to inquire about using my AA Plat benefits on my US Air flights, but US Air continue to tells me they will not recognize my AA Plat benefits (even though it clearly shows my AA Plat # on the US Air reservation when I view it online) because the reservation was made using BA miles.
My gut tells me this is going to be one of those cases in which the day I travel, when I check-in at US Air, show US Air my AA Plat card, US Air will honor the AA Plat benefits, what do you think?
I just want to use my AA Plat benefits for
1. bulk-head/exit-row aisle seating
2. free checked bag
3. possibly take an earlier flight
Do you think US Air will honor my AA Plat benefits?
Gary – May be worth an update as this comes up in google #1 under “Royal Jordanian trick” – manage booking link doesn’t work, need to go to book a ticket – https://www.rj.com/en/plan-and-book/before-you-fly/book-your-ticket?tab=5