Find your BA record locator from AA without calling

If you booked the BA flight with AA (which happens on award or TATL flights even when trying to avoid YQ) you will want to try and select your seats on the BA flight segments but most of the time the AA website won’t let you do that part. Some times on codeshares, Operated by British Airways, all you need to do is add your British Airways Executive Club number to the booking. After a few minutes, log into your BAEC account, and look at your upcoming bookings. You’ll find in there your BA booking reference for the BA legs, and will be able to select your seat, see avios to be earned etc.

if you booked the BA flight under the BA flight number, eg British Airways flight BA 345, then for some reason your BAEC details won’t get passed over. What you need to do is, bizarrely, go to the Qantas “Manage My Booking” page, and enter your American Airlines reference. Scroll down to the Seats section of the page, and you’ll see something like:

Seat selection is only available for flights operated by Qantas. To select seats and manage your booking, visit British Airways site with your booking reference #12ABCD

Then take that booking reference shown there, go to the BA website, use that with Manage My Booking, then enter your BAEC details + pick seats + see avios details + etc

The advantage (pardon the pun) is that you don’t have to call AA to get your BA record locator. Normally this isn’t a big deal. I researched this because I’ve tried to set aside time to call AA for the last couple weeks only to find myself ready to call on a bad IROPs days or Christmas eve which didn’t seem like a good idea.

Here are a few screen shots.

Manage your Qantas booking   Change flights   Check in   Select seats

Enter your AA record locator and last name

Booking   Details

Then scroll down to seat selection and you should see the above. I wouldn’t worry about the AA flights that show “Not Selected” if you know you did this with AA already. Your just accessing this page to get the “booking reference”# shown above so you can go plug that into the BA website.

 

 

Retro plane travel. Ah, the good old days.

I usually don’t get much value out of so called “news” stories from the Yahoo feeds but I cam across this one today and thought it was really not bad. Mostly because of the great retro 747 plane photos. Check it out.

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/traveling-in-a-boeing-747-in-the-1970s-was-pretty-damn-1504637666

I do love first class cabins and didn’t have much chance to travel the old 747’s of the 1970’s but I miss that. Madmen era folks all getting drunk and dressed up to fly to some far off adventure. Seems like glamour. Today some of the international airlines have taken things back to the level but at the expense of the space in Coach on the big A380s or 77W’s.

ultimate-travel_ss_plane-sexy_017_596x334

Earn Airline Miles for Booking Hotel Rooms for Others !

rocket miles logo

I’ve know about Rocketmiles for a long time and have been a user since May of 2013. It’s a fairly simple way to earn extra airline miles on hotel stays and you get at least a 1,000 miles for your first stay if you signup though this link.

Rocketmiles can be earned in various programs including:

Rocketmiles   Book Hotels Earn Thousands of Frequent Flyer Miles

What I didn’t know until today is that you can earn miles for booking hotel rooms for others. Just log into your account or join, book the room, and enter the actual guest’s name who will be checking in as “primary guest”. If you are booking for a company, you can contact Rocketmiles and ask to be put in touch with a “Corporate Account Manager” who can explain how to fully take advantage of Rocketmiles for your business (or your own personal account if your a person that books hotels for others, are you listing personal assistants of the world?).

Not bad. Oh and if you don’t belong to Rocketmiles already I would appreciate you signing up through one of my links as I do get some referral miles after your first stay booked through them. Thanks.

Earning the Chase British Airways Visa Card “Travel Together” benefit. Is it hackable?

British Airways Visa Credit Card   Chase.com

One of the best “sounding” benefits associated with the BA Chase Visa Signature card is the “Travel Together” ticket. Basically if you spend $30,000 on this card you earn this benefit. On the surface it sounds great. Here is what Chase says about it:

DOUBLE THE VALUE OF YOUR AVIOS*

Every calendar year you make $30,000 in purchases on your British Airways Visa Signature card, you will earn a Travel Together Ticket good for two years. Redeem your Avios for one reward seat for yourself and use your Travel Together Ticket to bring a companion in the same cabin even first class (taxes, fees and carrier charges apply). For more details, visit ba.com/TravelTogetherTicket

The problem is the fine print. They start to give some clues with the “taxes, fees and carrier charges apply”. They might just as well say you’ll actually have to pay for the ticket.

My wife and I have earned this on our cards but I doubt I will ever use it. It can be an OK benefit if you plan to spend money anyway. Basically for the cost of taxes and fees on a business award ticket you could buy a coach ticket. So it’s like buying an upgrade.

Here is some additional wording from British Airways:

BA Chase Redemption Voucher for a Companion

This voucher entitles you to book an extra seat for a companion to accompany you when travelling on British Airways (operated by Comair Limited) flights in South Africa. Your companion will have to be booked in the same cabin as you. All you will have to pay is the taxes, fees and charges for you and your companion’s ticket. Your voucher must be exchanged for a ticket and outbound travel must be taken before the expiry date on the voucher.

But that’s not all………………..

Here are the detailed T&C:

Redemption Voucher for a Companion Terms & Conditions

Earning a Redemption Voucher for a companion

  • You are only eligible to receive a Travel Together Ticket (“Voucher”) for a companion if you are a member of the BA Executive Club and are the main account holder within a BA/Chase Credit Card account (a “Member”).
  • Additional cardmembers to the main Credit Card account are not eligible to receive a voucher. Any amount spent on any supplementary Credit Card(s) of the main Credit Card account will count towards the main account holder’s Spend Target.
  • To be entitled to receive a voucher, the Member must have reached the required Spend Target within a 12 month period starting each year on January 1 and ending on December 31 (the “Twelve Month Period”) For the avoidance of doubt, if a customer opens a Credit Card account on any date following January 1 then they must have reached their Spend Target by December 31 of that year to be awarded a voucher.
  • The qualifying Spend Target of the BA/Chase Credit Card is 30,000 USD (the “Spend Target”). Qualifying spend does not include cash withdrawals, interest, balance transfers and fees.
  • Only one voucher can be earned in any Twelve Month Period. If the Member reaches their Spend Target within the Twelve Month Period then further spend will not accumulate towards another voucher. Members can begin earning towards their next voucher at the beginning of the next Twelve Month Period.
  • When the Member has reached the Spend Target an e-voucher (“Travel Together Ticket”) will automatically be added to their BA Executive Club account. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. The e-voucher will be valid from the date on which it appears on the Member’s Executive Club account and will be valid for 24 months.

Using the travel together ticket

  • The Travel Together Ticket (voucher) allows the main BA/Chase account holder, when making a return flight booking using Avios, to book another seat on the exact same journey for a companion without having to pay the Avios flight price for that Companion. Taxes, airline, government, or other separately charged fees and charges must be paid by Member redeeming the voucher and is payable at time of booking.
  • The voucher will be issued in the name of the main BA/Chase Credit card account holder, who must travel on any voucher.
  • The voucher may only be used for bookings, which are strictly subject to availability and BA offers no guarantee that Members will be able to book for a Companion on any specific flight.
  • A Member who has two valid vouchers on their account has the option to redeem both of them simultaneously on one flight booking, the Avios flight price must be paid for the Member and an additional individual in order than 2 Companions can travel on that booking.

Rules and Restrictions

  • The voucher can only be used for travel on reward flights listed in the Executive Club Redemption table operated by BA, in any cabin class, as long as the Member has sufficient Avios to complete the booking for their desired journey.
  • All travel must originate in and return to the US.
  • The voucher cannot be redeemed for travel with BA’s franchisees, code share partners or oneworld Alliance members.
  • The voucher must be booked online at ba.com.
  • The Member and their Companions must travel together at all times and therefore must be booked onto the same flight and cabin class when travelling using a voucher.
  • Bookings for Companions must be made at the same time as the Member makes their booking.
  • Companions do not have to be named within a BA Executive Club Household Account. Members can choose to take anyone as a Companion on their redemption voucher booking.
  • Outbound travel must take place before the expiry date stated on the voucher, however inbound travel may take place after the expiry date.
  • The voucher is non-extendable, non-transferable and have no cash value. No Avios or other frequent traveller programme miles or points may be earned on the voucher.
  • Once travel using the redemption voucher (s) has been booked, name changes are not allowed.
  • If travel using a voucher  is cancelled within 24 hours of departure, the voucher will not be re-issued to the Member’s Executive Club account.
  • If travel using a voucher is cancelled more than 24 hours before departure then the voucher will be re-issued to the Member’s Executive Club account for the remainder of its original validity period.
  • BA reserves the right to amend these Terms and Conditions at any given time. Any amendments made to these Terms and Conditions will not affect the validity of any voucher  which have already been issued.
  • The voucher  cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer or promotion, including Priority Reward (Gold Executive Club membership benefit). For more information on Priority Reward please visit ba.com.
  • Any use of the voucher and/or use of Avios must be in accordance with the BA Executive Club Terms and Conditions.
  • Members and their Companion(s) will be carried by BA in accordance with its notice and Conditions of Contract (as stated on each ticket) and its general conditions of carriage for passengers and baggage (copies available on request).
  • Members must remain eligible for this promotion at the time of travel. BA and Chase reserve the right to withdraw any vouchers in the event that the Member is in breach of the terms of the BA/Chase Credit Card or the BA Executive Club Terms and Conditions.
  • Offer subject to availability and may be withdrawn at any time. Additional significant restrictions may apply.

I highlighted the important parts. Basically you have to redeem it on a round trip from the US only which nearly all flights go through London LHR with a few exceptions for Open Skies and London City service. So not only do you have high airport fees and taxes but you have to pay the super high BA fuel surcharges (YQ) so that free ticket will cost arouind $1,000 in many cases. I’ve spent a lot of time researching and the experts seems to agree there is no way to fuel dump this. The closest I can find is that it is cheaper to book two one way awards in and out of LHR but that doesn’t work with the “together ticket” as it must be round trip originating and ending in the US. .

I love my BA Avios card and many of the benefits but this is my least favorite feature.

By the way I do not earn any commission from credit cards on this site so this is just opinion and based on personal experience.

Quick tip. Save 10% on British Airways bookings

Little known benefit still remains in 2015 for Chase BA card holders.

You can save 10% on purchased tickets through the BA.Com/Chase10 link.

Some details:

10% off when you book through ba.com/Chase10:

  • discount is off the total cost of the fare (including taxes, fees, and carrier charges)
  • choose from any of British Airways 180 worldwide destinations or OpenSkies from NY to Paris.
  • travel in any cabin — World Traveller, World Traveller Plus, Club World, First, Eco, Prem Plus, Biz Bed
  • book up to eight friends and family members travelling on the same flight

This offer has been around for at least 2 years and should go through at least 12-31-15 according to BA. I’m not sure how great it is compared to other OTA deals but hey 10% might help. The big challenge is they must be on BA operated flights from what I understand.