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Update: American award tickets again bookable on the British Airways website

Andrew Kunesh
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Andrew Kunesh is a former senior editor at The Points Guy covering loyalty programs. He's been a miles and points fanatic since 2014 and previously wrote for Upgraded Points and Credit Karma. Outside of the travel world, Andrew is a cyclist, craft coffee aficionado and — despite now living in NYC — a Chicagoan at heart.
Dec. 14, 2021
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4 min read
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Update: American award tickets again bookable on the British Airways website
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Editor’s note: This post has been updated with the latest information.

Update Dec. 14, 2021: American awards are again bookable on the British Airways website. You should now be able to search and book these awards as usual

(Screenshot courtesy of britishairways.com)

The original unedited story continues below.

British Airways Executive Club has had some major issues over the past few weeks. The program experienced scheduled downtime in late November, where Avios bookings and other website functions were scheduled to be down for four days.

This quickly turned into a more extended downtime, and a couple of weeks later some Executive Club members still aren’t able to log into their accounts. This means some members cannot search for award flights or redeem their Avios.

(Screenshot courtesy of britishairways.com)

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Making a complicated issue even worse, for those who are able to access their accounts, there’s a new issue at play: American Airlines award tickets aren’t showing online.

I searched for a handful of flights with verified award space, and none appeared on the “Book With Avios” page on the British Airways website. For example, this American award flight from Philadelphia (PHL) to Memphis (MEM) has partner-bookable award space, per the Alaska Airlines website.

(Screenshot courtesy of alaskaair.com)

However, the same search yields no award space on the British Airways website.

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(Screenshot courtesy of britishairways.com)

Interestingly enough, other partners are showing on the Avios search engine. For example, this flight from Seattle (SEA) to Dallas (DFW) has award space on both American and Alaska, per the Alaska website.

(Screenshot courtesy of alaskaair.com)

On the Avios search engine, though, only Alaska award flights appear. Oddly, the Caribbean Airlines logo appears instead of the Alaska logo.

(Screenshot courtesy of britishairways.com)

Further, other partners like Qantas appear correctly on the Avios search engine.

(Screenshot courtesy of britishairways.com)

If you need to book an American flight with your Avios right now, you may have luck finding award space using your favorite Oneworld search tool and calling British Airways at 800-452-1201 to book. Unfortunately, this means you could be met with long hold times given there are changing U.K. entry requirements due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Related: Ultimate guide to searching award availability for the major airlines

Bottom line

Right now, American award flights aren’t showing on the British Airways “Search With Avios” page. We’re hopeful that this will be fixed in the near future, and TPG has reached out to British Airways for comment on when this will be fixed. Until then, you’ll need to call BA to book these award tickets.

Feature photo by Zach Griff/The Points Guy

Featured image by (Photo by Zach Griff/The Points Guy)
Editorial disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.