I have a trip to San Diego next week routing via SFO. CX870 HKG-SFO arriving at 11:35 am and then connecting to a Southwest SFO-SAN flight leaving at 2pm. CX & Southwest sectors are on two separate tickets. I've never tried connecting CX-WN at the same airport on the same day before. So I don't know when check-in at HKG that day if they can tag my bags all the way to SAN so when I arrive at SFO, I can just drop my bags at the connecting belt after Immigration & Customs formalities and don't have to drag them to T1.

Earlier this year I connected CX-AC same day (also at SFO) on separate tickets and CX not only tagged my bags to my final destination, but also printed the AC BP on its own stock. But AC is not an LCC so it's a rather different story.

My gut is telling me that my bags may only be tagged as far as SFO when I check-in in HKG but hey I've never tried it hence my question. Regardless if they can't, Concourse A and T1 is more or less adjacent to one another so it'll be a short distance to drag both my checked and carryon bags.

I definately know on the return trip, WN will not tag my bags connecting to the CX sector.