Okay, so here’s the story. I fly between Texas and London a lot. A lot a lot. I’ve thought about switching to other airlines, but I’ve stuck it out with American Airlines. Sometimes when on AA.com’s website I buy a British Airlines ticket. You can buy a BA ticket, when you are logged into your AA.com frequent flyer account and from their site. At no point will you receive a warning of this awful news:
If you purchase a BA ticket from American Airline’s website you will not receive airline miles for that flight. I stand to lose about 40K miles. That’s bad news, real bad news. So I contacted customer support. Here’s the response they gave:
**** PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS AUTO-ANSWER MESSAGE ****
Dear MATTHEW GIERHART,
Thanks for using AA.com® to request mileage credit for your travel on
British Airways.I’m sorry to disappoint you but your transatlantic travel on British
Airways (or a BA-ticketed flight) is not eligible for AAdvantage mileage
credit. British Airways transatlantic flights to/from the United States
are specifically excluded from mileage accrual or redemption in the
AAdvantage® program.If your online mileage request included additional flight segments, we
will verify your flight information and post the eligible miles to your
account. If you check your account balance via AA.com, please allow up
to 10 days for American Airlines flights and 30 days for partner airline
flights to appear in your account. If mileage credit is denied, we will
notify you.Remember, each participating airline has its own rules for awarding
miles. This information is listed on our Web site at
www.aa.com/aadvantage. (Select ‘Partners & Mileage Programs’ and
‘Airlines.’)Thank you for your participation in the AAdvantage program and for your
patronage of oneworld® carriers.Best Regards,
AAdvantage Customer Service
American Airlines**** PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS AUTO-ANSWER MESSAGE ****
I understand their policy now, but surely they can understand how missleading it is from the customer’s perspective. AA doesn’t advertise Delta or Virgin flights, only BA. Seems like they have a special partnership. It seems like they work together.
I’ve already spoken with the British end of American Airlines customer service, no luck. I’ll call the American branch as soon as they wake up. I’ll keep you updated.
***UPDATE*** I lost. Not only do a single mile from my BA journeys, American won’t even allow me to switch my return flight from BA to American. I must buy a brand new one way ticket if I want to fly home on American and earn miles for that journey. Basically, I was told in a very nice way that I’ve just been wasting my time.
I did speak with their web navagation expert and told them my problem. They are going to add a feature into the pre-purchase page that identify if you are flying on an unrewarded airline (or in my case route as BA is a rewarded airline sometimes*).
When creating a mix CD you need a strong opening track. I assume when making a CD (as in recording on) you need a good opening track. But surely it must be harder because some songs are opening songs but maybe that opening song doesn’t fit with the second song etc. You can’t just write a new song, well you could if you are Ryan Adams. AC/DC clearly had this problem with Highway to Hell. Every song feels like an opening track. It’s crazy and it gets a little annoying to listen to all the way through. Wait, let me be clear I love this reord, so many good songs, but as an album I want to some movements some changes. That is my biggest request of an album, I want it to take me someplace that changes. ACDC while they definatly drag you on a high speed chase (NOTE: EVERY song mentions driving in some form). I think I listened to this album three times all the way through today and I did have my moments that I totally rocked out, I also got tired of those drums.