British Airways/American Airlines vent

[GilliC]

I just need to vent for a moment about British Airways and American Airlines complete lack of codeshare cooperation. I'm on BA-numbered flights home tomorrow, but my first leg is operated by American. I wanted to check in for my flight as early as possible so I can try to get a window seat to sleep on the short overnight flight back. So this afternoon I tried to check in, and (not surprisingly) it redirected me to the AA site. But when I tried to check in there, it said I need to check in at the airport.

So I called BA to see if I could pay for a seat reservation, since I couldn't check in. Since it's less than 24 hours to the flight, I couldn't, and they can't assign my seat until I'm checked in for the first leg. But they said to talk to AA because they didn't know why it wouldn't let me check in. Half an hour later, I was through to an AA rep, who said I couldn't check in because the flight schedule had changed since I booked the ticket, so BA needed to reissue it to get things to work right. They transferred me to BA who reissued the ticket. But I still couldn't check in.

I called AA back, and after another half hour I had a person on the phone who said that it should be working, and she didn't see any reason it wouldn't. So she transferred me to web services. 10 more minutes on hold before the web services rep got to me and immediately told me that the website simply wouldn't let me check in since BA had issued the ticket, and they get this question all the time.

WTF?! Shouldn't someone know that before bouncing me through an hour of phone transfers, ticket reissues, and false hope?!

Not to mention the fact that I'm not sure I'll even be able to check in for the BA flight until I reach New York. On the way here, BA couldn't check me in for my AA leg at all! They said I'd only be able to check in when I got to Chicago (unless I went to the American counter during my layover at Heathrow, but that's a different terminal).

I have never had Star Alliance codeshare flights cause me so much trouble. I am seriously side-eying both airlines right now.

[aMrsin09]

I had this happen on a Qantas/Emirates flight. I was doing Qantas to Melbourne, Emirates from Melbourne to Dubai and then Dubai to France.

For some reason Qantas couldn't check me in all the way through to France (although my luggage was no problem) and I had to check in for the Dubai-France flight with Emirates in Melbourne. Got to Melbourne and Emirates told me, nope Qantas has to do it. Qantas couldn't because it was an Emirates flight. Thankfully I had a long layover to straighten it out.
Cue some eyes welling up and telling Emirates that I was not going to land in Dubai at 2:00 AM, with only an hour layover, with no way to leave Dubai (Emirates didn't even show me on the manifest!)
The counter manager for Emirates was fantastic. He sent someone to Qantas to get my bag tag info and manually over-rode/added me to the rest of the flights

[alleinesein]

American should check you through to your final destination even though you will be flying on BA. They had no issues checking me through to BOM when I flew AA and BA last summer. I had to check in at the counter and they ticketed me through to my final destination. BA did do an additional ID check at the gate in DFW but I had no issues at all with either airline. They even had the BA short layover tags for my bags. AA does share a counter with BA at my local airport and I wouldnt be surprised if they worked out some sort of staffing agreement with AA to use their agents.

[GilliC]

Feb 22, 2015 4:56:08 GMT -5 alleinesein said:

American should check you through to your final destination even though you will be flying on BA. They had no issues checking me through to BOM when I flew AA and BA last summer. I had to check in at the counter and they ticketed me through to my final destination. BA did do an additional ID check at the gate in DFW but I had no issues at all with either airline. They even had the BA short layover tags for my bags. AA does share a counter with BA at my local airport and I wouldnt be surprised if they worked out some sort of staffing agreement with AA to use their agents.

Where did you buy the ticket? AA claims that they can't check me in because BA ticketed the flight. And my single AA boarding pass has "Sold as BA" printed all over it.

They did check my bags through (no "Terminal 5 Short" tag, though, so I won't be surprised if my suitcase doesn't make the tight connection even if I do). But I only have the one boarding pass.

[hazel]

Something similar happened to me with those airlines in 2008. I couldn't checking online the day before my flight, so I made sure to arrive early at the airport the next morning. I think I tried calling the day before, but I can't remember.

The ticket counter opened at 5:30 a.m. and I was the first person in line. My AA flight departed shortly after 7. I stood at check-in until 6:45 while the agent tried to issue me a ticket. They finally just sent me through security and on the flight without a physical ticket. I was escorted to the front of security and then the last person on the flight. The agent was very frustrated as well because she could see I had a seat on the plane but when BA reissued other legs of my trip they didn't issue some important code needed for the ticket. She tried calling BA and they suggested I just buy a new ticket. Riiiight.

Can't believe this is still an issue 7 years later.

[alleinesein]

Feb 22, 2015 12:11:47 GMT -5 GilliC said:

Feb 22, 2015 4:56:08 GMT -5 alleinesein said:

American should check you through to your final destination even though you will be flying on BA. They had no issues checking me through to BOM when I flew AA and BA last summer. I had to check in at the counter and they ticketed me through to my final destination. BA did do an additional ID check at the gate in DFW but I had no issues at all with either airline. They even had the BA short layover tags for my bags. AA does share a counter with BA at my local airport and I wouldnt be surprised if they worked out some sort of staffing agreement with AA to use their agents.

Where did you buy the ticket? AA claims that they can't check me in because BA ticketed the flight. And my single AA boarding pass has "Sold as BA" printed all over it.

They did check my bags through (no "Terminal 5 Short" tag, though, so I won't be surprised if my suitcase doesn't make the tight connection even if I do). But I only have the one boarding pass.

Bought mine on BA. I was able to pick my seat on the AA flight when I booked the ticket on BA.  

[cheezer]

I had similar very stupid issues on Air New Zealand and United. My flight was delayed, we missed our cxn to NZ and no one could issue us a damn ticket because NZ claimed it was on United and United claimed it was on Air NZ. I swear I almost killed someone that night. Thank god we were on the phone vs. actually in the airport talking to a person because I couldn't cause physical harm over the telephone.