Help us out: your experiences of using two frequent flyer numbers with the same booking

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• Jason says:

  14 Mar14 March 05:44

  The option to change on Air Maroc was greyed out for me in Feb. I couldn’t change it.
  Original booking was BA.

• Fred says:

  14 Mar14 March 05:48

  Hi Scenario 1 here. I enter my RJ Golden Sparrow account in the booking at time of booking to get the Free seat selection, extra luggage etc, lounge etc

  Then I used to change to BAEC thru the RAM website when in lounge with a boarding pass downloaded (usually PDF so it wouldn’t update) . Always worked fine and Avios/TP credited OK to BAEC.

  Two issues:
  – I would often forget to change the number when in lounge, got distracted etc.
  – I’ve actually now concluded (in light of the BAEC changes) that the RJ scheme is far superior so not going to change it anymore to gain Avios. I’m aiming for my Golden Sparrow renewal in August! For anyone who flys mainly BA/IB Shorthaul, absolute no brainer.

  Second Lumma’s request please. An article on how to use RJ points would be great!

  • Zain says:

    14 Mar14 March 06:03

    Think RJs redemptions are a lot worse than BA’s so just curious why you’ve decided to stick with them

    • Lumma says:

      14 Mar14 March 06:17

      I’d guess that it’s because it’s easy to get status via segments with RJ. Even with status with RJ, l still think more redemptions will come via BA (avios from credit cards and nectar) but would be good to know how to use up the RJ points from cash tickets

      • Fred says:

        14 Mar14 March 07:32

        Yes exactly. In an ideal world, I’d take the “Miles” into my BAEC as Avios as they are much easier to use and the “Tier Points/Segment” to my RJ account to get status. But obviously that can’t happen!

        RJs requirememt to get 26 segments for Silver equivalent is very achievable with 1-2 SH Europe flights per month.

        Whilst the Avios from these would be great, ultimately can easily be replaced through Credit Card accrual etc.

        Only risk with this of course is that RJ tighten their scheme.

        • JR says:

          14 Mar14 March 09:16

          Hey Fred – have you had problems using your RJ status in the US in order to gain lounge entry on domestic itineraries? I’m keen to switch to RJ, but have read in the forum some people have had problems with American and Alaska recognizing the status…

• R says:

  14 Mar14 March 06:02

  Anyone with experiences with VS / FlyingBlue?

• MORRIS says:

  14 Mar14 March 06:03

  I encountered some difficulty at the Amsterdam OneWorld Lounge this week, as a BA Silver arriving on BA and transferring there to Qatar. I showed the lounge attendant my BA boarding pass to prove my silver status, but he simply could not understand and insisted it was not an arrivals lounge. He finally made a long phone call to Qatar who authorised my use of the lounge.

  • John says:

    14 Mar14 March 08:54

    You should have shown your BA Silver card (available in the BA app)

    • MORRIS says:

      15 Mar15 March 06:39

      I don’t know what I’m missing here but you’re probably right. I thought a BA boarding pass clearly indicating my silver status, together with a flight confirmation of my connection with QR, in Business class, would have done the job. I’d have shown a QR outbound boarding pass if I’d had one but this was only available when the boarding gate opened.

  • John33 says:

    14 Mar14 March 22:09

    I am surprised they let you in at all. You were trying to enter a lounge in AMS with a boarding pass for a flight that departs from LHR.

    • MORRIS says:

      15 Mar15 March 06:44

      The guy running the desk really didn’t want to, but QR on the phone persuaded him to take mercy on me, as I had a 4 hour layover before my QR flight.

• Jay says:

  14 Mar14 March 06:30

  Qatar is really good at this, I’ve been able to use my status as BA silver on Qatar flights but have the points go to QR privilege club to trigger the Accor status match. I tried changing the frequent flier number at the gate and the agent explained it, added both numbers as if I should have known it was a thing. Super helpful.

  I’ve had the opposite with BA where I’ve entered my QR number, it’s printed on the boarding pass, but because I added the booking to the app somehow in the background the points ended up going to BA and it has been painful trying to get them removed and re-credited to Qatar whose number appeared on the boarding pass in the first place.

• KARTIK says:

  14 Mar14 March 06:38

  Hi Rob I have just recently faced issue number 2. I am BA Silver and with a young family I can’t travel enough to keep up status post BAEC changes. So on reading various HFP articles and comments, I signed up for Finnair.

  On LHR to BOM return I would earn approx double the Avios on Finnair than BA despite having no status.

  I used BA number on booking to get free seats, priority checkin, fast track and lounge. At T5 lounge in B gates I asked if they could change the FF number to Finnair and she did it for me.

  3 days later the Avios and TP for the outbound credited to BAEC. On Finnair app the booking was now showing just the return leg.

  On my return the boarding pass at the airport somehow automatically reverted back to the BAEC number and they were not willing at Mumbai to change the FF number.

  I am now stuck with TPs which won’t help me and a lower amount of Avios. Any guidance on how they could still be swapped to Finnair would be helpful or what I should do differently next time.

  My Silver status expires in November 2025. This is due to a paternity extension.

  • JR says:

    14 Mar14 March 09:21

    With BA lounges the best course of action is to ask them to delete all the FF numbers, and save and close down the booking. The open the booking on BA.com which should then let you add a FF#. This is because there are 2 frequent flier fields (as explained in the article) and some agents get confused or input the values incorrectly leading to points going to the wrong account. Thus the most straight forward (idiot proof) way is to delete everything and input the number you want.

    • KARTIK says:

      14 Mar14 March 21:20

      Ok thanks for the advice for next time. What would you suggest for this trip that’s already done and credited to BA? Leave it or ask BA to remove and then ask Finnair to add?

• Nick says:

  14 Mar14 March 06:38

  Scenario 1 here. Had Finnair status and added the FF# at the time of booking. At the airport gate, the agent was happy to (and very quickly) updated it to my BA FF# and reprinted the boarding card with a new (lower) boarding group, and the points posted successfully (pre-BAEC changes!)

• Jon says:

  14 Mar14 March 06:41

  Finnair’s web site allows addition of multiple frequent flyer numbers on a OneWorld booking (not just Finnair’s own). But it’s not clear which number gets used for what (miles accrual versus benefits etc). My assumption is that the most-recently added number is the accruing one, but I’m not totally sure of that.

  I’ve had a few cases where adding two numbers here has resulted in neither crediting until after manual intervention on chasing up, even after ensuring the correct one is on the boarding pass at check-in.

  Also, while I’ve found this a useful way to get the status-holding FFP onto bookings where the operating/ticketing carrier wouldn’t let me change it (which seems to be getting more common? Especially on redemptions), I’ve found it can also result in the booking no longer being managable via the operating airline’s app/website (that was before whatever recent change OneWorld/Amadeus did that has made a permanent feature of not being able to manage one airline’s booking via another airline’s MMB 🤦‍♂️).

  Of course, none of this really mattered before they started charging for seat selection… 😉

  • Niall says:

    14 Mar14 March 07:18

    I believe Finnair’s website stopped letting you manage non Finnair bookings some time ago.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

      14 Mar14 March 07:28

      It did – within days of the RJ buy status offer starting!

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