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I am an awards member with both American Airlines and British Airlines. I work in the Middle East and every month I'm either flying to the Middle East or flying home.

My company only has an account with BA and for the last 3 years after my flights are over I request miles to my AA account and have received them. So in fact I'm actually earning double miles. I don't know why but I have never requested miles for flights I fly with AA on my BA account.

This week I tried to add miles from my recent flights with AA to BA and they were rejected. When I called BA to find out why they had been rejected they told me they had already been credited to my AA rewards account and BA couldn't award me because that would be "double credit"...

I don't want to make too much of the issue if this will hurt me with my AA rewards. But is this correct? Any one else have this issue or could you help me ?

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    Pick one program or the other. Make sure the account number for that program is each ticket you fly (you can always ask an agent at the airport to put your frequent flyer number in if needed). You can't earn double miles for the same flight in two different programs.
    – Zach Lipton
    Apr 29, 2016 at 17:59
  • IF your company is receiving credit, it is in a program separate from the ordinary Executive Club, which is for individuals. Likely, your company is not a member of any equivalent AA program, thus you can seemingly double-accrue in one direction but not the other. Generally speaking, you can only accrue miles from any flight to a single individual frequent flyer account.
    – choster
    Apr 29, 2016 at 18:53
  • Yes, choster is almost certainly right about what's going on here. Many airlines have separate loyalty programs for companies that are in addition to, not in lieu of, their loyalty programs for individuals. Both the company and the individual can earn points for a flight (even from the same airline,) but neither the company nor the individual can earn credit for the flight on more than one airline. You should not have earned BA points to your personal account for the flights that you credited to your AA account, though your company may have earned BA credit for it.
    – reirab
    Aug 31, 2016 at 18:06

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Yes, it is correct. Airline partnership arrangements include this restriction as a matter of course. The point is to achieve reciprocity; allowing people to double collect (or more) would alter the economics of frequent flyer rewards, fundamentally changing their value.

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  • Especially since there are often a dozen or more members of the alliance. Can you imagine crediting a flight to 15 different loyalty programs?
    – reirab
    Aug 31, 2016 at 17:59

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