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Old Jul 8, 2016, 2:22 pm
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Last edit by: Prospero
UPDATED FOR 15 NOVEMBER 2016: BA will no longer accept interlining on BA-BA separate tickets / PNRs.

From 1 June 2016, the oneworld policy on accepting customers travelling on separate tickets was changed. BA, along with some other oneworld partners, has implemented this change in policy which is as follows:
Only those customers that have separate tickets issued in the same PNR/booking will be accepted for through check-in. Furthermore all sectors must be BA / oneworld / other carrier, but BA to/fron Vueling is specifically NOT allowed even on the same ticket. Aer Lingus is not specified but some be covered by "other carrier".

A PNR is a wrapper, and it can have several tickets, and other items such as hotels, in one PNR, so long as it was built that way at the time of purchase. Another (new) ticket can be inserted into an existing PNR after purchase, it is easiest to do this at a BA airport, and there is a small fee for doing this (£15 in the UK). However you cannot merge 2 existing PNRs into one PNR - once a reservation has reached ticketed status it can't be moved. If you have 2 PNRs you need to allow time to collect and re-check any bags at the transfer airport.

There is one exception: BA to BA transfers, on 2 PNRs, are allowed. See post 643 for details.

___
From post 947. Select "do not have IATA number"
http://www.speedbirdclub.com/ch/reservations-ticketing/rulesregulations/separatetickets/
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BA no longer through checking baggage with separate tickets

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Old May 24, 2016, 12:10 am
  #61  
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Originally Posted by rossmacd

MAY CHECK BAGGAGE TO
AA [...]
ME MI MK MN MS MU MX [...]
Hmm, don't see MH on that list. Anyone have experience with MH -> BA luggage checking? I'm flying KUL-LHR in August. Continuing to the EU on BA. If I have to collect my bags, I'm going to plan for an extra hour of transfer time in LHR.
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Old May 24, 2016, 12:17 am
  #62  
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Originally Posted by binman
Sadly many BA checkin staff simply don't have a clue either about oneworld or indeed BAs policies. Even the basics such as 3 letter codes is a mystery to many. My last ex EU was AMS DOH DPS and the agent knew neither DOH nor DPS. Worse was that they were unable to obtain the information from the system in front of them.
Certainly not limited to BA staff. A few years ago an EK check-in person tried to send my bags to DEN instead of DPS. Probably a good thing I caught that right away. No idea why the software didn't catch that error and actually printed the label.
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Old May 24, 2016, 12:19 am
  #63  
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Originally Posted by pjh981
I think I'm now being black-balled by BA. No response for over 24 hours to emails to YouFirst, or to two Tweets and DMs on Twitter.

Can a BA Exec Club rep on FT please now intervene and PM me with some information - whether good or bad?

6 days without baggage and no effective communication other than quoting an unpublished 'policy change' is not good enough
Have you tried contacting by telephone?
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Old May 24, 2016, 12:32 am
  #64  
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Originally Posted by Maluku_Flyer
Hmm, don't see MH on that list. Anyone have experience with MH -> BA luggage checking? I'm flying KUL-LHR in August. Continuing to the EU on BA. If I have to collect my bags, I'm going to plan for an extra hour of transfer time in LHR.
MH's list includes BA.
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Old May 24, 2016, 12:34 am
  #65  
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Originally Posted by nux
MH's list includes BA.
I thought these arrangements worked by mutual agreement?
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Old May 24, 2016, 12:37 am
  #66  
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Originally Posted by aberdeenflyer
... we had 5 bags on BA to Munich then qr from Munich to Doha to Muscat.

.... In Aberdeen they had offered to put bags as far as Doha no problem but too many sectors to Muscat.
They couldn't handle 4 sectors ?????
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Old May 24, 2016, 12:38 am
  #67  
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Originally Posted by Dave Noble
Have you tried contacting by telephone?
Yes, spent over £200 on calls to BA Gold line over past 5 days - with the exception of one staff member on Sunday who went above and beyond and spent most of his shift pursuing managers to establish basic facts (and will get my golden ticket) everyone has been pretty clueless - BAs systems tell staff nothing, and their ability to communicate internally also seems woeful. The most frustrating thing is that every time you 'phone you have to start at the beginning and explain everything again as you never get the same person twice.

I'm hoping that BA will cover the cost of these calls, but not prepared to run up further cost listening to music and messages about "how much BA values my call" whilst holding for an Agent.
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Old May 24, 2016, 12:41 am
  #68  
 
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An OT data point.

With a polite request, the QR check in person at QR F desk at BKK investigated how to check our bags BKK-DOH-AMS-LHR with the final sector on BA on a separate booking reference and quickly found out how to do it.

Bags were amongst the first out at T5. ^
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Old May 24, 2016, 12:48 am
  #69  
 
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Originally Posted by pjh981
Yes, spent over £200 on calls to BA Gold line over past 5 days
It doesn't make any sense to spend money on calls to BA. There are both 0800 and US 1-800 numbers which can be called completely free from Skype (or from UK/US landlines respectively).
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Old May 24, 2016, 12:52 am
  #70  
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Originally Posted by TravellerFrequently
An OT data point.

With a polite request, the QR check in person at QR F desk at BKK investigated how to check our bags BKK-DOH-AMS-LHR with the final sector on BA on a separate booking reference and quickly found out how to do it.

Bags were amongst the first out at T5. ^
In discussion with the QR Station Manager in BKK, he has assured me that interlining from QR to BA from BKK is routine and not a problem. This is definitely a local BA LHR issue.

QR have claimed that the reason for my misplaced baggage is that they were incorrectly keyed and tagged by BA at check-in which led to one never even leaving LHR (and it is still there), and the other only getting to ARN but missing the connection (despite 3 hours on ground) as it was not tagged for automatic transfer. I don't know if this is true, but can't help thinking that LHR seems to be the single point of failure

Last edited by pjh981; May 24, 2016 at 12:57 am
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Old May 24, 2016, 2:03 am
  #71  
 
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Originally Posted by pjh981
I think I'm now being black-balled by BA. No response for over 24 hours to emails to YouFirst, or to two Tweets and DMs on Twitter.

Can a BA Exec Club rep on FT please now intervene and PM me with some information - whether good or bad?

6 days without baggage and no effective communication other than quoting an unpublished 'policy change' is not good enough
You should be dealing with QR rather than BA as the former was your last carrier. QR is responsible for reuniting you with your bags. It is always a pain to get mishandled bags back when two or more carriers are involved, especially when the last carrier was not the one that mishandled the bags.
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Old May 24, 2016, 2:12 am
  #72  
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Originally Posted by Maluku_Flyer
Hmm, don't see MH on that list. Anyone have experience with MH -> BA luggage checking? I'm flying KUL-LHR in August. Continuing to the EU on BA. If I have to collect my bags, I'm going to plan for an extra hour of transfer time in LHR.
That is weird.

Originally Posted by Maluku_Flyer
Certainly not limited to BA staff. A few years ago an EK check-in person tried to send my bags to DEN instead of DPS. Probably a good thing I caught that right away. No idea why the software didn't catch that error and actually printed the label.
There isn't much in the way of software!

Originally Posted by Maluku_Flyer
I thought these arrangements worked by mutual agreement?
Depends on the agreement ... but it's strange to have a oneway baggage interline agreement.
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Old May 24, 2016, 2:12 am
  #73  
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Originally Posted by Andriyko
You should be dealing with QR rather than BA as the former was your last carrier. QR is responsible for reuniting you with your bags. It is always a pain to get mishandled bags back when two or more carriers are involved, especially when the last carrier was not the one that mishandled the bags.
I am dealing with QR but they are unable to get coherent information from BA and have asked me to also try to use my BAEC Gold status to get information from BA who are holding my bag and have already forwarded someone elses lost bag to me in error. QR staff in BKK cannot make international telephone calls and do all their comms by email/telex which BA are incredibly slow to respond to.

The really infuriating thing is that QR have had a telex from BA for 5 days now saying BA has custody of the bag in their LHR T5 Baggage Centre and even providing the location by row and bay number within the baggage centre - but it is proving impossible to get BA baggage staff to go to the bay number, pick up the bag, tag it and put it on the plane as QR have repeatedly asked.

BA staff have been more focused on getting back the bag they sent out to me in Thailand in error on Sunday (which should have gone to LA!) I've had 4 calls now from BA on that (totaling 36 mins call time which I've paid for!) - if BA staff are content to pester me with calls to trace someone else's bag which they sent to me in error, they should have the courtesy to also be willing to discuss mine - but they're not.

Or am I expecting too much after 6 days?

Last edited by pjh981; May 24, 2016 at 2:24 am
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Old May 24, 2016, 2:34 am
  #74  
 
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Originally Posted by pjh981
Or am I expecting too much after 6 days?
No, you are no expecting too much.

I was recently in the same situation - one airline lost the bags, while the last carrier was different, and it was infuriating how uncooperative the airline can be. However, from the point of view of the airline - the last carrier is responsible for delivering your bag so the first one can just wash its hands of it.

Here, BA is responsible for delivering the L.A. bag, however, it does not seem to be concerned about your bag as (in its mind) it is QR's responsibility. I know you know that BA actually has your bag and a lot here depends upon BA's willingness to cooperate and to transfer the bag to QR asap so that QR can deliver it to you, however, it is unlikely that calling BA will speed things up.

It is upsetting and infuriating, however, I have learnt that calling the airline that actually lost your bag does not really help, and letting the two airlines figure it out among themselves will yield the same result.
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Old May 24, 2016, 4:19 am
  #75  
 
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Originally Posted by rossmacd
Ask the Gate Agent before boarding starts to determine if the bag has been "seen" or loaded. They should be able to tell from their systems.
or the lounge agent.

Though that doesn't always yield the right answer / result.

I had a bit of a complicated itin in January and checked in MAD that the bags had made it TATL and was told 'yes', and checked again with BA SCCM on board and he checked with the gate agent. the answer was "all bags that we were expecting are on board" - which turned out to be correct but meant that my bags still hadn't made it from MAD to BCN nor then obviously to LGW (as BA never expected them).

If I had checked at the gate, am sure agent there could have actually looked for the bag and told me that it hadn't made it.
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