Airmiles

sanofi · 12 Oct 2010 at 14:14

Any frequent flyer here who can answer a question but collecting airmiles?

Is it possible to claim miles for a recent trip prior to signing up for one of these membership schemes (ie. BA Executive Club, AA Advantage etc?).

I have a feeling the answer is no but no harm asking.

POB · 12 Oct 2010 at 14:15

You can for a lot of them, most airlines will allow retrospective claiming.

Amount of time after the event varies though.

Look for claim missing miles forms on the sites etc.

sanofi · 12 Oct 2010 at 14:24

POB said:
You can for a lot of them, most airlines will allow retrospective claiming.

Amount of time after the event varies though.

Look for claim missing miles forms on the sites etc.

Thanks, will give that a try.

wildman · 12 Oct 2010 at 15:05

yes, you just need the eticket numbers and you can claim them on your account (well this is at least the case for BA Executive club)

Showboat · 12 Oct 2010 at 15:08

If you keep the stubs they give you back when you get on the plane you can get em back.

sanofi · 12 Oct 2010 at 15:09

wildman said:
yes, you just need the eticket numbers and you can claim them on your account (well this is at least the case for BA Executive club)

I have AAdvantage membership and also Executive Club membership. I tried claiming a past trip from before i signed up with AA, they said I had to contact them via phone.

I'm thinking to stick with the AA one. Is one better than the other?

wildman · 12 Oct 2010 at 15:17

sanofi said:
I have AAdvantage membership and also Executive Club membership. I tried claiming a past trip from before i signed up with AA, they said I had to contact them via phone.

I'm thinking to stick with the AA one. Is one better than the other?

The BA one gets you entry to the lounges when you reach silver / gold without the need for you to be travelling business class, so if you do lots of travelling and spend lots of time in airports like I do then BA one is probably better just for that perk, it also gives you a bit more ability to swing a bit of lead when you are looking for a bump up in cabin for nought. I have on more than several occasions managed to get myself upgrade from economy to business or economy plus simply on the weight of being a gold card holder. This usually works only when the flight is fairly full and there are spaces up the front, If flight is half empty or jam packed then you are kind of out of luck

sanofi · 12 Oct 2010 at 22:47

6 months seems to be the cutoff period for recovering mileage with BA.

I am leaning towards BAEC atm but is there any truth in the amount of miles you get with BA is only 25% and with AA it's 100%?

sanofi · 19 Oct 2010 at 15:30

Another potentially obvious question, if you book a flight with AA and get points with AAdvantage, can you use that flight to get miles with BA EC?