That's a biggun!

That’s a biggun!

Yep, a little bit off topic, but that’s why I have a Diversions file! Some of you may remember a post I did for all of your frequent fliers a couple of years ago about some travel trouble I was having with airline tickets purchased as codeshares. In all fairness, this isn’t just an issue with one particular airline (although I did discuss my experience with AA/BA). Here’s what happened today.

I was finishing up my tour of Ireland a bit early and wanted to stand by on an earlier flight. With BA, you can do this if you have any status at all including honoring OneWorld levels. BUT! Only if you have a BA marketed & operated ticket. So my AA codeshare on the BA aircraft means that I have to sit and wait for my flight, EVEN THOUGH there are many seats available. I called to see what AA could do just for fun, and they wanted $1,400 to change the ticket.

Lovely, right? Moral of the story, avoid codeshares wherever possible—ESPECIALLY if you have status.

EDIT: So, thanks to some other insiders giving me some more information, I believe that some of the content here is slightly inaccurate. Specifically, the only way that BA allows some kind of service similar to what we call standby in the US is via a fully-flexible ticket. So even though in my experience whereby any ticket on AA is eligible for standby, not every ticket on BA is similarly eligible. So even if you end up with a BA marketed & operated ticket, you may not be able to do the standby thing, even with status.

This post originally appeared on BrandenWilliams.com.

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