The ‘Amadeus Check My Trip’ tool is so simple I often forget that it exists.
It is no secret that Avios are extremely effective for booking short haul domestic flights or west coast flights to Hawaii on American or Alaska Airlines. Yesterday I was booking a family trip to the Big Island and decided Avios from LAX to KOA would be an easy way to get six of us on the same flight to Hawaii. The American Airlines route was simple and availability showed online at BA.com so there was no reason to put in a call when I could book it online in seconds. I easily completed the booking and received my BA record locator instantly.
One of the cardinal sins of booking awards is failing to immediately pull up all your segments on the operating airline’s website to confirm they too have a confirmed record of your trip. In this case I needed the AA record locator so I could pull up the itinerary on AA.com to confirm it existed and select seats. Because I booked a partner award, BA.com only sent me a British Airways record locator. My first instinct was to put in a call to the British Airways US call center which often has lengthy wait times but then I remembered a really simple trick that I often forget.
I navigated to Amadeus Check My Trip.
You type in the confirmation number provided by British Airways and your last name. When you hit View Itinerary it spits out your itinerary including your American Airlines confirmation number.
That was easy. You can now use your AA confirmation number to pull up your record on AA and select seats.
The bottom line
This trick is so simple I often forget about it so I thought I would highlight for those who were unaware of the tool.
About alex
Alex loves to travel and does so a lot. Logging 100,000 flight miles each year over the past 4 years, Alex uses points and miles to power his passion. Alex is continuously striving to experience the far reaches of the globe. In his day job, Alex is a Management Consultant frequently on the road advising Technology organizations. I love thinking about, reading about, and talking about all things travel. Feel free to reach me at pmmalex@gmail.com
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Any advantage of using this method over using finnair method? Go to https://www.finnair.com to look up BA booking -> add your AA # -> now view at aa.com
@Mark – Nope, that works equally well. I wrote a little about Finnair and Royal Jordanian in this post about picking Airberlin seats.
http://pntsmlsmartini.wpengine.com/2013/02/trick-to-picking-airberlin-seats-online/
The oneworld web is a bit twisted at times.
The correct spelling is locator not locater.
It is also a good idea to recheck the AA confirmed reservation a day or 2 after booking with Avios to make sure it is actually “ticketed”. Had problems with this twice recently.
@Gene – Fixed, thanks!
@Alanea – Agreed
If you’ve got status on another oneworld airline it’s valuable to change your FF# on your Avios reservation to reflect the premium account so you can access premium seat selections.
Does this work only with BA reservations? Tried it with US (to pull up SQ PNRs) but it didnt work.
@JettyBoy – Amadeus is a Oneworld tool. SQ and US are currently in the Star Alliance so this tool would not work for their reservations.
I learned something new today! Thanks for the tip!
Didn’t work for me when I checked 2 different AA award reservations traveling on AA flights
Went to aa.com and they were there?
Puzzled me ?
Thanks, Alex!
@Waggera – BA uses the actual Amadeus reservation locator while AA produces its own. This website asks for the Amadeus locator so it will not recognize AA locators. Given you have the AA locator and you are flying AA, this website (even if it hypothetically worked on AA locators) would not provide you any additional information.
Cool, I usually tweet @americanair but this should be even better.
I just booked an Avios award on behalf of my father in-law, and when I got his BA record locator, I went to AA, clicked on “My Trips/Checkin” and retrieved the AA locator using simply his first and last name plus the BA record locator in the “record locator” field. It then returned the reservation with the AA record locator. I didn’t know it was supposed to be complicated.
Is there a simple record locator for AS flights booked using Avios or do you always have to call in this case?
I managed to pull up my Avios booking using the AA.com record locator, but unfortunately the status is showing “Unknown” even with most of the correct info save for a changed flight number. AA keeps telling me that I must fix this through British Airways, but I’m not convinced that is the case. Any suggestions besides waiting on hold for BA?
I am always able to look up my BA award reservations on my AA ff account. Haven’t figured anything out when booking on Alaska though.
@Sajer Guy,
Just read something on this a couple weeks ago. Good that you paid attention.
You made my day!
I had been staring at the “modern” checkmytrip (https://www.checkmytrip.com) and overlooked AA’s locator.
The link you gave to the “classic” site: https://classic.checkmytrip.com and the accompanying pics opened my eyes ;-
Damn! I think this only works between some of oneworld airlines. Just tried with my LAN code locator, called them to add my AA #, but it is still not showing up in aa.com
Is there a way to do this for flights marketed and operated by Qatar Airways? I would like to view the trip in AA since I’m AA Plat and its probably easier to get mobile boarding pass. I however have updated the Qatar booking with AA FF already.
I wasn’t aware of this tool. Thanks, very helpful!