Big news. Free upgrades for British frequent flyers who fly American
The news announced by British Airways and American Airlines is bound, we hope, to start a real and [...]
British Airways
American Airlines
Oneworld
The news announced by British Airways and American Airlines is intended, we hope, to kick-start a a real revolution in the world of frequent flyers. European passengers in particular will benefit. The reason is simple: is the first time two companies have decided to activate this benefit For their respective elite customers.
In this article:
Upgrades "made in the USA"
To understand this novelty, we need to make a premise and explain A unique feature of American loyalty programs: these reward loyalty and status ownership with automatic upgrades for all passengers.
In fact Premium seats are filled by passengers housed in lower classes, all in a very transparent way: passengers can check their status for upgrade both on the official APP and on airport monitors. In a nutshell, passengers who have status can get in line to get an upgrade. These upgrades are assigned according to status and when you check in, if there are vacant seats they will be assigned free of charge to passengers on the waiting list.
For long-haul flights, on the other hand, those with the highest statuses have the option of using vouchers to request immediate upgrades without waiting until check-in.
With BA GOLD status you have two upgrades when you fly AA.
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You could get up to 600€ compensation per person
Effective immediately, British Airways Executive Club Gold members receive two upgrade vouchers that can be used for an upgrade on American Airlines:
- It is valid only for tickets issued by British Airways.
- Upgrades are valid for one class of service, from premium economy to business class, or from business class to first class; upgrades from economy to premium economy will not be possible.
- Only itineraries that include a transatlantic route are valid, so will not be usable on routes within the US.
- Upgrades cannot be wait-listed on American Airlines, so there must be room for immediate confirmation.
- For first class there must be seats in A class, and for business class there must be seats in C class.
- All published rates are eligible for upgrades, but not award tickets. This means that even taking a discount ticket will give you a chance to upgrade.
Obviously this is reciprocal news, this means that the same will be true for American frequent flyers when they fly BA, with the same rules of engagement.
A surprising novelty, hopefully soon to be copied
American Airlines and British Airways are members of oneWorld, in the past there had been talk of a similar operation at the alliance level, but right now this news is only about these two companies. Now we will see what the competition will do, for example Delta/Air France-KLM and United/Lufthansa, but not only.
It is a real advantage for British Airways Gold members, Paradoxically, it might happen that a Gold user would find it cheaper to buy a ticket in premium economy aboard AA, upgrading with vouchers compared to traveling on BA. Admittedly, American Airlines' business class is inferior to British Airways' Club World Suite, but it is certainly better than BA's old and still popular business cabin.
