Using British Airways Avios to book short-haul flights on American Airlines (or Alaska) is one of the best miles and points deals out there. While it is not AS good as it once was (since there are no 4500 Avios flights available in North America any more), you can still pay only 7500 Avios for any flight up to 1,151 flown miles. Many other airlines have started to offer reduced mile awards as well
[How you can still book cheap flights with Avios]
Finding your American Airlines record locator on an Avios booking
The one thing to keep in mind any time you are booking an award with a partner airline is that you will have MULTIPLE record locators, one for each airline that you fly. The record locator is a 6 digit alphanumeric code that lets you do things like manage your booking, pick out your meals (if applicable) or choose your seats.
When you book with British Airways Avios, you’ll get a record locator from your ba.com booking. This booking is ONLY good for British Airways, and won’t help you if you are flying any of their partner airlines (be that American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, etc)
The new way to get your AA record locator from an Avios booking
It used to be that you had to go through several hoops if you wanted to get your American Airlines record locator from a British Airways Avios booking. I had written about a trick to do that using the Royal Jordanian website (rj.com), but other people have suggested using Finnair or Qantas.
I was booking a flight from CVG-DFW and decided to use 7500 Avios to book it (though the cash price was only $131). I got my British Airways record locator and just entered it into the Manage my Bookings section on aa.com
(not my actual record locator 😀 )
And American Airlines brought my booking right up. Not only did it show the AA record locator (in case I needed it), but it also let me pick my seats and such
Did you know that you could enter a British Airways record locator on aa.com?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I already knew that but in my experience PreCheck does not show up on my boarding pass until I go to Finnair to flip my frequent flyer number to AA. Even though my Known Traveler is in my AA profile it won’t see it until I change the frequent flyer number.
I normally use CheckMyTrip.com, which is Amadeus’s online system
I did not know. Thanks.