Using 
British Airways Avios is a great way to travel, even domestically in the USA. Even with the impending British Airways devaluation coming up, the best redemption (4500 Avios for flights under 650 miles) was mostly unaffected.
(SEE ALSO: 6 winners and losers with the British Airways devaluation)
The tricky part is that when you make a British Airways award booking, they give you a confirmation number that is only a BRITISH AIRWAYS confirmation number. If you try to use that on American Airlines or US Airways’ website, it will not be recognized. A few months ago, the last time I did a British Airways Avios award redemption, I called in to British Airways call center to get the flying carrier’s confirmation number – but with a recent Avios redemption, I figured out a much easier way!
Miles to Memories has a great rundown on a MUCH easier way to get the correct confirmation number – via the Royal Jordanian website! Royal Jordanian is also in the oneworld alliance, and thus is a partner of both British Airways and American Airlines.
(SEE ALSO: Introduction to Air alliances)
(SEE ALSO: [QUIZ] – Can you name the oneworld alliance members?)
Using Royal Jordanian’s website to get the correct confirmation number
The original Miles to Memories post was mostly focused on getting the correct number in order to put your frequent flyer number in, but it’s useful even for non-elites. Specifically in this case, I have no airline status worth mentioning, and my CLT-CVG flight is an award flight, so I’m not going to earn any miles on it.
But I still want to make sure that the ticket has transferred to the airline that I’m ACTUALLY FLYING on, and do things like view / change seats. I don’t want a repeat of what happened to Mommy Points in Jamaica! And to do that, I need the confirmation number of the airline that I’m flying (in this case, US Airways)
So log on to the Royal Jordanian website, and go to Manage my Booking, and put in your British Airways confirmation number and last name
You’ll have that from your British Airways confirmation email. Click on Search, and Voila!
I’ve marked where the US Airways / American Airlines confirmation number shows up, though I’ve redacted the actual information.
Using your new confirmation number on the flying carrier
You can then take that US Airways confirmation number over to the US Airways website and manage your booking there.
Here’s the information for my flight back from the Family Travel for Real Life conference. Now, keep in mind that seat selection for non-elites is not the greatest, but you’ll likely have better luck than if you just randomly get a seat assigned to you, which is what you’re getting without picking one in advance
(SEE ALSO: Why yes, US Airways, I WOULD like to pay $15 for the seat right next to me)
(SEE ALSO: #FT4RL Trip report – CVG to DCA (to Hyatt Dulles))
Hope this helps you! It sure has helped me!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Booked AA flights with Avios last week and within 30 minutes of ticketing on the BA site, AA sent me the AA confirmation number. I didn’t do anything special so not sure what has changed.
Interesting – I just booked a US Airways flight a few weeks ago and never got any information from US. Maybe it’s different between AA and US?
I booked American Airlines and US Airways flights last week and used the confirmation numbers from BA to look up the corresponding reservations. They both worked.
Alternatively, on AA website, go to My Trips/Check In tab, enter the your name and confirmation number from BA, and the next page contains the AA record locator. On US Airways, after putting in your reservation info, you need to click the link to choose your seat, and on the bottom of the page it gives you your US Airways record locator.
Cool – glad to see that there are a couple of ways to get this information. I’d imagine as AA and US complete the merging of their IT systems it will (hopefully?) only get easier!
Whats wrong with using Checkmytrip.com? Takes 10 seconds to get your US or AA confirmation # once you plug in the BA#
I do the exact same thing! Checkmytrip is so convenient. Instead of Royal Jordanian that the article suggests, I use AirBerlin to change the FF# to AA.