When booking with Avios, make sure to get a confirmation number for the airline you’re FLYING on!

I recently got a new phone, and so I was trying to download the various airline travel apps, and make sure I had the information there for all my upcoming trips. So I downloaded the US Airways app, and put my confirmation number I had received from British Airways.

[b]The US Airways app did NOT know what I was talking about![/b]

It turns out that the confirmation number that I had received was a BRITISH AIRWAYS confirmation number, and had no real bearing on my ticket or confirmation numbers on US Airways (the actual airline that I’m flying – or “metal” in flyergeek terms). I tried some Googling but didn’t find much success. I figured that makes sense since it’s only been a few months since US Airways joined the OneWorld alliance and became a partner of British Airways. When I changed my search to booking Avios on AMERICAN, that yielded a few results. The one I found most helpful was from The Points Guy.

The story he shared (from a reader) was exactly the same as mine, and yielded bad results at the airport. When the traveler got to the airport, American had no idea who he was and he was not ticketed. Long story short, they were trying to get him to cough up 22,500 miles for the only available seat on the plane (in first class). He eventually got it worked out, but the takeaways were

[b]Make sure to call the BA Executive Club line at 800-452-1201 to make sure you have been ticketed![/b]

It looks like the major problem was that BA was not always passing the birth date of the passenger to its partner airlines. Since the TSA requires birth date for passengers, they weren’t getting past the ticketing phase.  The post was from a year ago and it appears that is now resolved for the most part.

I called the Executive Club hotline, and after navigating the phone tree (you want ‘5’ for all other questions) and listen to them talking about their SHedule and their “PRIVACY” (short-I) policy, I got to an agent.  I gave him my BA confirmation number and asked for the US Airways confirmation number, which he gave me.

I was then able to enter that in to the US Airways mobile app, and on their website, as well as view my ticket number and choose my seats (3A FTW!).  So I’m feeling good that I have a real ticket

I think that in my case I’d probably have been okay, but it’s always good to double check!

Have any of you ever run into an issue like that?

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