How to Tell If You Can Book an American Airlines Flight With Partner Miles

A Facebook group member asked this very question. She was having a hard time deciphering when/if an AA flight should be available to partners like British Airways Avios.

It’s the same concept as when I made the Instagram reel explaining how to book AA First Class transcon flights with Etihad miles.

The reason this comes up so often is that you can’t transfer any points except Bilt (and Bonvoy if you count that) to AA. So, when you don’t have any AA miles and AA serves the route you want, you need to know how to suss it out.

I personally use ExpertFlyer but that is not a tool most of you use (and it’s paid).

You could simply search on BA’s website and on Qantas, for example, but people get confused about why a flight appears or does not appear.

So I figured I would draw it out. If you go to aa.com on a desktop and do a flight search, you’ll see all the available flights bookable with AA miles.

But that means nothing for partner bookings.

You’ll need to click on the Details link, which will pop open everything available.

F, J, and Y are code for AA only bookings in First, Business, and Economy, respectively.

You need to see Z, U, or T in order to book via partners, again, in First, Business, and Economy, respectively.

See below for clarity.

And that’s it!

If this particular flight had “T” class showing under main cabin, you would have been able to book with via British Airways Avios. But it doesn’t, so you can’t – and it’s really that simple!

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Questions?

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