While most of the attention today has been on US Airways, given that they’ve officially left Star Alliance and become affiliated with OneWorld, it’s worth noting that TAM did exactly the same thing and is also a OneWorld member airline as of today.
Continue reading: TAM Joins OneWorld As A New Member Airline
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
@Lucky - I mentioned this on one of Gary's posts today, but US is still blocking TAM First awards. No word on whether this is intentional or an IT glitch. I hope they sort it (if it's a glitch) before TAM shutters the whole thing again!
I haven't tried using AA miles (they were unable to do it as of a couple of days ago, as you know). Any word if AA is back up?
The counterargument I mentioned as far as the explanation is that it wouldn't have made sense that it started so early or lasted so long if it was transition-related. And it's also route-specific, we don't see first class out of Miami the way we do out of New York.
Bottom-line is the availability makes no sense...
@Heather - I wasn't aware that AA was working on this at the moment (we would have heard). The question is if phone agents at least are now able to book it again.
TAM is still an Aeroplan partner, although I believe you cannot mix carriers. The April 6 flight shows up on Aeroplan's website for JFK GRU but not YYZ/YUL-GRU
Heather, I was able to put the TAM F awards on hold using AA miles. Availability on the BA website was correct.
I'd encourage you to explore (or revisit) the benefits to some of focusing on BA Avios as their Oneworld account of choice over AA and others, primarily because of BA's feature to link accounts of family members under one household, allowing you to pool miles together.
For those who open mileage accounts for their kids that only fly once a year, or for those who can't open a lot of credit cards, this unique feature of BA can make it the best choice in Oneworld for a lot of users.
+1 Brazilflyer.
I've got a stash of BA miles that I have just been hanging on to, and now this give me a great option to start redeeming for some trips.
For dates in November, BAEC was showing 7 TAM First Class seats on LHR-GRU! In a cabin of 4 seats!!!
Put JJ F awards on hold last night via AA, JFK-GRU. BA said there were 4 seats on one day and 5 on another day not sure how that's possible when only 4 seats exists. After I booked my 3 seats BA showed 0 on the flight that had 4 and still 5 on the other.
Hope this trip actually happens.
Lucky, do you know if TAM releases any F seats to/from Europe? At all?
Also, is the BA calender view only for BA flights? Is it possible to search for partner flights for more than one day at a time on BA.com or any other free service?
Thanks.
@ Bjørn -- Calendar is only for BA flights. I haven't seen any first class space on TAM to Europe.
Lucky, do you know if domestic TAM flights are bookable with AA miles? The agent I spoke with was able to see space but was unable to book it. Just wondering if you had any experience with this. Thank you!
@ Chris -- It absolutely should be. I would recommend calling again, could have just been that there was an availability discrepancy.