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

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• Colin MacKinnon says:

  14 Mar14 March 10:57

  I have no BA status. RJ Gold Sparrow.
  Couldn’t change BA 241 to RJ anywhere, so had to call BA to reserve seat. UK agent had great difficulty, and eventually said: I’ll just book it as complimentary.
  On return, I found I had “earned” c150 aviois for “seat resevation fee”!
  Next 241 long-haul, managed to change to RJ on RAM site, but still couln’t choose seats on BA. Phoned again and agent quickly arranged seats.
  All business class anyway, so lounge, fast track etc all included.

  For short-haul economy, EDI-LHR-XXX, I just stay with RJ. Has made me use BA more since I hate the god-awful o’clock airlines, and the lounge access in LHR helps break the journey!

  • buchanan101 says:

    14 Mar14 March 11:18

    Can you choose seats on RAM? That’s where I have been updating to RJ – or even choose on RJ, rather than BA.

    Next is actually an AerLingus, originally booked on BA… This Oneworld stuff gets confusing

    I’ve changed a fair number of upcoming flights now, but haven’t got to the 7 day window for any of them

• M says:

  14 Mar14 March 11:11

  off topic slightly but say you have 2x bookings for a family trip – 1 cash with Adult and a child and the other a 2-4-1 adualt and child (with the adult being gold) can I link the cash and avios bookings as ideally want to choose seats on the cash booking or am I pushing things too far IT wise! 🙂

  • M says:

    14 Mar14 March 11:12

    Should add… Gold for not much longer 🙁

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

      14 Mar14 March 12:00

      If all in the same cabin and same flight you can call and ask for “to complete party” and seats together will be manually selected.

      It doesn’t merge the booking and those on the other booking don’t get any of benefits of your gold baggage allowance etc that those on the same booking as you get.

• felim says:

  14 Mar14 March 11:15

  I’ve been doing this for years with Finnair ( where I’m platinum). I book Iberia or BA WITHOUT logging in to either account & during purchase I add my Finnair number, this picks up I’m platinum and allows me book seats ( at time if booking for free) & allows for extra bags all at time of purchase ( not 3 days before flight).
  My avios go to Finnair but obviously I can move them for free to Aerlingus Qatar etc. This has worked for years for me

  • yonasl says:

    14 Mar14 March 13:15

    You seem to be just using your Finnair number on IB and BA flights. There is nothing weird going on here. The article is about mixing two loyalty numbers on a same ticket.

    • Bagoly says:

      15 Mar15 March 00:09

      Indeed no mixing, but a good point about how to avoid markting carrier insisting on its number being used.
      AA is really bad at that – it seems there is no way to enter another airline’s FFN.
      The problem with booking when not logged in is that one has to retype address every time.
      I should have thought of RAM.

• JR says:

  14 Mar14 March 11:21

  my predicament was a one way through ticket bought through an OTA for Heathrow – Haneda (BA) – 4 night stopover – Narita-Auckland-nadi (NZ).
  so I have OneWorld and Star alliance on same ticket..
  I have NOT put any frequent flyer numbers in (im bronze on BA)…
  Thanks to Rob at HFP who solved my problem easily.
  But any other suggestions welcome
  cheers guys

• Nick says:

  14 Mar14 March 11:24

  By far the best way to change FFP (i.e. most foolproof) is to go old-school and ask a person, not try to do it yourself. The lounge is best in London (or EDI), check-in desk at outstation. Get them to print out your BP rather than using it on your phone – your points will go to whoever is printed on this BP, and you then have a physical copy in the event a retro-claim is needed – but it’s very unlikely to be an issue this way.

  If you only need lounge access from status and want to claim points from someone else, put the ‘someone else’ in the booking and just show your other card when you get to the lounge – for BA this works fine and is expressly allowed in lounge access rules – there are clear instructions for it. Obviously it won’t give you seat selection, etc., this way.

  The problem with asking for FQTV/S is that it relies on the agent having joined when they were actually trained how to manually construct booking elements (both call centre and airport) – anyone newer has only been taught through GUIs and it’s not there. HUACA should work, it does go through if you can find someone who knows how. You can thank Alex for that one.

  Note changes can’t be handled at outstations that are ‘offline’ (i.e. don’t use FLY). You can ask all you want but they physically can’t do it. There aren’t many of these though.

  • JDB says:

    14 Mar14 March 12:30

    This has to be the best advice as while successes have been reported above swapping between FFP at the vital moments, there have been many previous reports of failures. There can be no certainty of being able to make the necessary changes at the right time or that an agent does them correctly. Unpicking TP/Avios awarded in the wrong scheme is messy.

• Paul says:

  14 Mar14 March 11:52

  I’ve given up trying to use two numbers as it just doesn’t seem to work. I am in the process of moving from BAEC to Qatar Privilege club and when booking with BA (I commute between Switzerland and London so it’s hard to avoid them) I have found it hard to even add my QR number. So I apply my BA number, select my seats and then contact BA via X to get them to add my QR number.
  When flying from an airport with a OW lounge I just flash my BA gold card to get access. Where it’s a 3rd party Lounge, like it is in Basel, I was ok to go without access for the couple of months it took me to get QR gold/OW sapphire
  Biggest pain was being group 7-9 for boarding and scrambling to make sure I could get my case in, but as it was only for a few weeks it was ok
  P

• DJW says:

  14 Mar14 March 11:53

  I am flying LHR to MAD on Iberia today (in business). I am BA Gold but the booking and BP has my IB plus number in it which I can’t seem to change.

  Concerned about the ability to use the first wing at LHR T5 with a no status IB number on my BP.

  Suggestions please.
  Thanks

  • Nick says:

    14 Mar14 March 12:10

    This is an easy scenario because at first wing you enter the lounge before going through HAL gates. So you show your BA card along with your boarding pass at the lounge scan, the agent overrides it in FLY. Here HAL will let anyone through who BA approves, unlike main security when they check for fast track access.

    • DJW says:

      14 Mar14 March 12:20

      Cheers Nick

    • Tariq says:

      14 Mar14 March 19:26

      Indeed. Like late last year when I had put my RJ number into my booking, boarding pass had group 2 on it but not Fast Track, so was sent to the regular queue. 🙄

• JimBH says:

  14 Mar14 March 11:58

  I use this a lot on Club Europe flights. Most of my flights are Avios redemptions so I need to be logged in to BA at the time of booking meaning my BA FF number is on the booking from the outset. I’m only Blue on BA. After booking I go to Royal Air Maroc and swap the number to my Royal Jordanian FF (Gold Sparrow on RJ, equivalent to BA silver).

  Then I return to ba.com where I access my booking which now reflects the RJ number, and grab free seat selection. If it’s an avios redemption I leave it on RJ (no worries re lounge access as in Club Europe regardless). If it’s a cash ticket I swap it back to BA so I earn the avios.

  In recent months when selecting seats on BA Euroflyer A320’s (those where there is no row 1 D/F (a/c reg’s starting G-GAT) it’s allowed pre selection of 2D & 2F, which of course is first row on this aircraft config, ie. the best seats which are usually blocked for Golds until 72 hrs prior to flight!

  • Trent says:

    14 Mar14 March 12:27

    Funnily enough, it let me do this as a BA Silver as well. I selected 1D for a CAI-LHR a few months before travel. Now all I need is someone to move out of A or F and I’ll be very happy!

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