Assimilated Cajun

I sure wish I'd seen this thread before booking two separate PNRs for my recent trip from CGK through HKG to DFW-xxx.

For some reason it was $1000 more expensive to fly nonstop to the US from CGK than from HKG -- a dramatic change since a few months ago, when returning through Jakarta was the key to getting an $800 RT TPAC trip. So I booked an AA award on the CX midnight flight from CGK to HKG and then paid for a same-day HKG-DFW-xxx flight on AA. Made sure to print out both itineraries and my AA boarding passes from HKG onward.

I arrived at CGK about 10 pm and went to CX's Business Class check-in lounge -- pretty much the nicest place in the Jakarta airport -- only to learn that CX would check my bags only as far as Hong Kong. At first I was sure that the check-in agent must be mistaken, since I have checked bags on separate PNRs numerous times on Cathay and other airlines in the 20 or so years or so I've been flying between the US and southeast Asia. But she consulted a supervisor who showed me the new rule in writing. (The CX guidance essentially states that there's a new OW alliance "agreement" that OW carriers "will not" check bags through to fights on separate PNRs after 1 June 2016. It doesn't acknowledge that each airline remains free to check bags through if it wishes to provide this service.)

I asked the CX people in CGK -- as well as a couple of AA agents on the EXP line in the US to whom I made Skype calls -- if there might not be some way, just this once, to waive the new rule, since I hadn't been notified of it and because going through immigration and baggage claim in Hong Kong at 6 a.m. would mean being stuck outside with my luggage for five or six hours until the AA ticket counter opened. Was finally referred to a higher-ranking and more helpful CX official. He said he could not check the bags through to my final destination but would send a telex to AA in HKG requesting that they pick up my bags from CX and re-check them without my having to exit the transit area. He was pretty sure it would work.

The CX staff in HKG, who had also been notified of the issue, met me at the plane and escorted me to the CX lounge (The Pier). At 11:30 a.m., about five hours after my arrival, a CX customer service agent walked me to the AA transfer desk to try to seal the deal.

The AA agent at the transfer desk was easily the most unhelpful person in the whole saga. The discussion between her and my CX escort was all in Cantonese, but the AA agent's facial expressions and body language made clear that as far as she was concerned it was my problem. She addressed me once in English toward the beginning of the conversation: "May I ask, Sir, why you do not claim your bags yourself?" To which I answered that going through immigration, baggage claim, customs, check-in, and immigration again was something of an ordeal, and that AA's baggage personnel were in a far better position to handle this transaction quickly and easily than I was. Then lots more Cantonese discussion, with my CX advocate's invocation of the words "AA Emerald" only intensifying the disdain that was evident on the AA agent's face. Then the AA agent addressed me again: "I'm sorry, Sir, there is nothing we can do." I asked to speak to a supervisor. She called someone on the phone, argued in Cantonese with whoever it was, and then told me AA would try to find my bags but there were no guarantees, and that I'd have to wait by the transit desk for an hour or two while they worked on this. I asked why I couldn't just go to back to the lounge and wait. The CX agent endorsed this, they argued for a while more, the AA agent got back on the phone, and finally she told me, "You can go." She made no effort to mask her dissatisfaction with this outcome, and reminded me again that there was no guarantee AA would find my bags. But a few minutes later, back at The Pier, the CX staff told me my bags had been located and re-checked to my destination.

My initial impression when I learned of this new rule was that it was solution without a problem, caused entirely by CX's irrational inflexibility. On the way back to the lounge, however, the CX agent told me that the reason CX didn't like to interline bags with AA is that the AA personnel in HKG would not let passengers board their flight unless CX had retrieved and transferred their baggage, which sometimes did not happen due to short connection times. CX then had the obligation to put these passengers on its own flights with no compensation from AA. My respective experiences with the AA and CX personnel in HKG lend support to the suggestion that AA may be the culprit -- or, at worst, that CX may be exacting payback for AA's bad attitude.

Anyway, I've learned my lesson: never book an itinerary with two PNRs involving CX and AA through HKG. Next time I can't find a decent fare from my starting point to my ultimate destination I will either fly through NRT on JAL -- which one of the AA EXP agents said has a more customer-friendly policy on multiple PNRs -- or maybe try a two-leg award flight on SQ. And another lesson: AA needs different and better staff in HKG.