AirTran Airways A+ Rewards - Luggage Question

I got a little creative with booking a flight for my family from St. Louis to Puerto Rico to get the price down into our affordable range. My question is "will my luggage make it?"

Our first tickets on AirTran are 1-way from STL to Fort Lauderdale, FL (stopover in ATL). Then we have separate 1-way tickets from FLL to SJU (Puerto Rico) later in the day.

Will we need to claim our luggage in FLL and re-check it? Or will AirTran put the connections together for us? Am I crazy? :)

First off, how long is the connection?

If its a legal connection then you have set yourself up into the grey area where it is an arbitrary call and up to the folks at the airport. There are various scenarios that could play out, if its an illegal connection than your chances of success are severely limited.

We land in FLL at Noon and depart at 5:45

In this case AirTran is under no obligation to transfer your luggage since you have booked an illegal connection. Max connect time is 4 hours in FLL from Domestic->Domestic.

Your best bet is to ask the airport folks nicely and see if they can do it. However if they chose not to not only will you have to re-check your baggage at FLL you will have to pay for it again.

Remember - You are on two separate tickets. While there's plenty of time at FLL, you are at FL's mercy if something goes really wrong and you arrive 6 hours late.

FL will almost certainly rebook you xFLL, but you will be behind others on single tickets.

Ask yourself how much you are really saving by booking separate tickets.

Thanks for the feedback. I saved almost $1,000 by booking this way for my entire family. Maybe not the best idea, but we are getting to take our kids somewhere very special that we would not normally be able to afford. I didn't realize there was something "illegal" about the connection time. Probably worth a call to Airtran to make sure everything will be OK.

Hopefully next year I will have earned enough rewards by following the advice of this great forum to not have to jump through "hoops" for a trip like this!

Thanks for the feedback. I saved almost $1,000 by booking this way for my entire family. Maybe not the best idea, but we are getting to take our kids somewhere very special that we would not normally be able to afford. I didn't realize there was something "illegal" about the connection time. Probably worth a call to Airtran to make sure everything will be OK.

Hopefully next year I will have earned enough rewards by following the advice of this great forum to not have to jump through "hoops" for a trip like this!

PA42 is giving you your best advice... FLL has very few transfer bags with virtually all of them going to SJU so they know when it departs.

Odds are in your favor unless you have a really short connection in ATL.

PS - If you manage to get your bags tagged through to SJU at STL and everything goes as planned- I'd pack swimsuits/towels in small carryons and *if* weather is nice (this is east coast florida on a summer afternoon afterall weather could be great or horrible) consider a cab to the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk for a couple hours with lunch and beach if all goes well. Just minutes from the airport. Stay hotdogs or burgers with lunch and a family of four might be $50-75-ish for that little sidetrip. Get a phone number for the cab company and ask the best known or popular dropoff/pickup point on your ride there. Be in the cab ready to head back 2hrs prior to departure...

http://www.visithollywoodfl.org/hollywoodbeachbroadwalk.aspx

If your family consists of kids that would love the beach time it sure beats sitting in the airport for that long! And of course don't tell them of that little surprise sidetrip....

Hopefully next year I will have earned enough rewards by following the advice of this great forum to not have to jump through "hoops" for a trip like this!

Reservations will not tell you anything new in your situation from what you have heard here, especially since it is coming from higher up sources than anyone at reservations as far as routings go.

If you book any sort of double itinerary at FLL that has a connection time of less than 25 mins or more than 4 hours on any domestic to domestic segment that is where you run into trouble, even combining 2 PNRs into 1 is going to take some hoops to jump through. While FL agents might very well help you out at the airport the decision ultimately begins and ends with them.

What I can offer you though is a reach out to our station leadership up in STL to see ahead of time what your chances are of checking these bags all the way through and what we can do for you. I suggest you shoot me a message via PM with your flight details and we can take it from there.

Why is it called an "illegal" booking? I prefer the term "on your own" booking!!:p

No one said its an illegal booking, its an illegal connection if combined into 1 ticket.