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An airline reservation code is essential whether you're looking to get a seat assignment or check-in with an airline. However, when booking a flight involving more than one airline, the airlines involved may assign multiple reservation codes. To get the other reservation code, you typically need to call the airline you booked through to ask.
Recently, American Airlines eliminated the need for this phone call. Now, American Airlines travelers can see any partner reservation codes right on the website or app.
What is a PNR
Whenever you book a flight through American Airlines, you're assigned a PNR — or Passenger Number Record. This six-digit reservation code helps identify your reservation within the American Airlines system. However, when you book a flight that involves one of American Airlines' 20+ partner airlines around the globe, the partner airline may assign a second PNR code for the same reservation.
Now, this partner PNR is in plain sight for passengers booking through American Airlines.
Partner PNR Location
Partner PNRs now appear both on AA.com and in the American Airlines mobile app. Simply select the reservation of interest from the “My Trips” menu to find this information. Below is a screenshot showing the exact location on the American Airlines website:
A brief partner PNR description accompanies the actual record locator for those who may be unfamiliar with the topic.
Anecdotally, the addition of partner PNRs only seems to apply to new partner bookings — not to existing ones. So, if your travel plans were made months ago, you may still have to get on the phone to find out your partner PNR.
Why Does This Matter?
Your American Airlines PNR carries a great deal of importance, as this is the record locator used whenever dealing with the reservation directly with American. However, that PNR means little for a couple of key parts of a plane trip. Typically, partner airlines require a partner PNR to book seats or potentially even check in online for your flight.
Our Take
This marks a huge improvement and potential time saver for those booking partner flights via American Airlines. In the past this information was only available by calling in to American Airlines, which could be a lengthy process. Now, for those willing to wait a few days, that phone call can be avoided entirely.
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FYI: Yesterday I reserved a trip on Jetblue with the flight operated by AA. The ticket number is displayed on the Jetblue itinerary and I entered it into the AA mobile app with my last name and it pulled up the AA flight record with no problem, where I was able to select a seat.
This is great! Before it has really been a hassle to select seats and check-in online for codeshare flights. Usually we had to call the other airline and spend quite a bit of time waiting for and talking to a customer service agent.
Oh wow, this is great news! We flew from Chicago to Hong Kong last year and could not figure out how to get around this issue. I’m glad to have this solution for future flights! Thank you.
That is an amazing announcement! Before that it was terrible to find the PNR. It will save a lot of time for me, because I always want to book or confirm my seat in advance.
Terrific improvement! I get mad looking for partner’s record
I hope other airlines follow suit.
This makes so much sense, and it’s good to know about it. Thanks for a real improvement!
Thank you American Airlines! This PNR policy is so helpful. It has always been a big problem. Now you solved it and made it much easier for us. Can’t wait to get back to full throttle AA traveling soon! Thank you again
Great addition! It has always been a pain to find the partner information and keep it handy.
Nice improvement for American Airlines even though in the past also when having the PNR code the manage of the reservation in the site of some partners was very limited and so not helpful at all.
Thanks, this is very helpful information. Can’t wait to get up in the air and travel the world again!
Finally! Been waiting on this for quite a while!
I never understood why there is a second PNR for the airline which operates the flight . It is a waste of time and really annoying. AA made a wise decision to provide the info promptly . No need to call the airline which issued the ticket. Thumbs up!
This is such great news! Having everything in one place. We book alot of travel with Miles or my AA credit card but we always have seperate reservations. This will help decrease frustration at the airport and time trying to find all the different reservations! Thank you for starting this!
A little surprised it took this long, since this is a clear win-win for all involved. One less customer service headache for them and smoother sailing for us. Actually, it’s two wins for them. Eliminate a problem they constantly hear about, freeing up precious agent resources and increase customer satisfaction without really any added cost to them.
This is such great news! Having everything in one place. We book alot of travel with Miles or my AA credit card but we always have seperate reservations. This will help decrease frustration at the airport and time trying to find all the different reservations! Thank you for starting this!
Wasn’t familiar with the PNR benefit. Great information. Thanks!
Love that American Airlines makes streamlining their customer’s experience a priority! Thank you for another best practice approach for all who fly.
this is great feature, makes sense since it’ll save unnecessary phone calls.
Finally this is such great news! So happy about this! Thanks american airlines, we have been waiting for this news! So excited!
Great improvement, this will be so useful!
Small improvement are improvement , its good to have partners locators code in the same place without having to call and waste your time.
Thanks for this news, really helpfull
Excellent news! This new feature is most welcome!!
Great feature for travellers in remote locations that usually connect through different airlines!
This should save some time. Sounds like a good move.
It does make me wonder about the decisions that go in to this sort of thing. I know that there is an IT cost to making this change, but doubt that AA made the investment for customer satisfaction, but more likely they’ve seen how many hours of call time have been wasted by people having to speak to a human, who then looks something up on a computer and passes on information.
Hopefully they will start adding more award partner flights to be booked online.
I can’t tell you how many times this would’ve come in handy. Excellent news!
Great news! It was a bit confusing to match codes whenever I booked a flight with Iberia. This new feature is most welcome!!
well this is certainly a big plus and can save alot of aggrevation
Thank you.
This will be very helpful for checking flights, especially for someone who is a bit paranoid like myself!
It was always such a pain trying to get the correct record locator for the actual airline I’m flying. This is a huge improvement. Wish other airlines would do the same.
What is the most valuable benefit of this extremely time-saving function?
Awesome! Saves a huge amount of wait time on the phone to get the booking reference numbers. Makes seat selection and meal selection much quicker and easier!
United Airlines has shown the partner carrier PNRs on tickets on their website for a few years now; I am surprised American Airlines is only just now adding this capability. Then again, American has only recently gotten serious about getting its partners flights (paid and award) onto AA.com while United has been a go-to for years now for booking Star Alliance flights entirely outside USA that often do not show up on Google Flights (or are way more expensive on other airlines on Google Flights). Looks like AA.com may finally have become such a resource for OneWorld. Now if only Delta were to do the same with Skyteam.
Thank goodness… finally they managed to add this to their system and their system in moving into this century. This had been one of the most irritating issue with AA reservations that included partner flights.
This is a marked improvement to the customer interface, especially since many of us like to use the British Airways Avios hack to use Chase/Amex points with AA.
Actually PNR stands for Passenger Name Record.
I agree – Passenger Name Record.
This AA.com feature will be useful, especially with more and more codeshares being added; on AS/B6 this year, and eventually EI – if they ever join the Atlantic JB and/or Oneworld that is…
Looks like a move in the positive direction for AA .
This is a very helpful improvement. I have wasted a lot of time on the phone getting the PNR from other airlines so I could choose my seats. The one thing that I have learned about PNRs is that they aren’t permanent. Once the Flight is over, they are no longer a way of finding information about the flight. (They will be reused) The ticket number is the way to refer back to a previous flight, that one is unique.
Finally……..