Or will I have to file a DOT complaint after UA checks me in for my upcoming DEN-IAD(UA)-PTY-MVD(CM) flight in two weeks, and a Visa card dispute for the unjustified fee?
The last time I was on an international flight that involved UA as the first/check-in carrier, UA agents were parroting the "I've been doing this for 20 years and it's the check-in carrier's rules that apply." (SEA, Nov 2011 for a SEA-IAH-MIA(UA)-MVD(AA) itinerary).
Based on when the ticket was purchased, before July 1 2011, AA gave 2 free bags and was the MSC under the IATA 302 rule. UA checked bags through but demanded, wrongfully, 2nd bag fee. The fact that AA is a competitor and never a partner is irrelevant to the IATA ruling. One journey, Most Significant Carrier determination, that carrier's rules for fees apply. It was disgusting that your agents had not even heard of this ruling.
I can fully understand that they might have had to look up the AA bag fee, but there is no excuse for them not even knowing of the existence of this industry-wide new rule.
For the record, whenever an airline employee pulls out that "doing it for 20 years" BS, that means they haven't bothered to read policy memos and updates for at least a decade. Which means in this case, that they are doing it wrong for about the past year.
Copa gives 2 free bags on USA-South America routes. Copa is the first airline to cross an international boundary and the first to cross an intercontinental boundary, so by the IATA Resolution 302 MSC concept, they are the carrier whose baggage fees (zero) are required to apply to the entire itinerary.
Yet UA has nada on their website about the MSC concept whatsoever. I fully expect UA is going to demand $70 for my second bag. That is 100% wrong in TODAY's world, even though for the past 19 years before the past 1 year, it would be correct. (Well assuming there had been fees 20 years ago, which there were not...)
Ticket happens to be a UA MP award, issued by UA, with native CM coding on the CM flights, but according to the IATA rule, that should be irrelevant.
United Insider or anybody else with real knowledge/ability to make things happen, are you following this rule yet? It's been in full effect for months.
Responsible airlines like Alaska (
https://www.alaskaair.com/content/tr...Info-policies: Customers connecting to an international flight on another carrier within 12 hours of arriving in the connection city shall follow the baggage allowance and charges set forth by the international carrier provided a ticketing/baggage agreement is in place with the other carrier) and LAN do have mention of it right on their own website baggage pages.
Por ejemplo, LAN makes it very clear that this has been an IATA rule since April 2011:
http://www.lan.com/en_us/sitio_perso...info_iata.html
Originally Posted by LAN Airlines IATA Baggage Rules Page
If the allowances are different, the allowance of the most significant carrier for the route checked in for applies. The most significant carrier is chosen according to definitions provided by IATA...
The most significant carrier is decided in the following order:
- The first carrier that crosses from one zone to another. E.g. A: the carrier that crosses from America to Europe.
- The first carrier that crosses from one sub-area to another. E.g. B: the carrier that crosses from Europe to Africa or from South to North America.
- The first international carrier of that zone when travel is within a sub-area. E.g. C: the first international carrier on a journey from Santiago to Lima.
Your ATI partner ANA has some mention of it too. As does a Finnair-centric site. It's worldwide.
http://www.ana.co.jp/wws/japan/e/asw...e/baggage.html
http://newsletter.smt.fi/2011/04/07/...baggage-rules/
What's wrong with you, UA? This is not supposed to be optional, not carrier-choice. It's the rules of the IATA. Yet I 99.9% know you are going to rip me off and are likely doing so to thousands of travelers every day with interline international flights connectiong to carriers with more generous baggage allowances.
What can you do to assure me that you will follow the correct, current rules when I check in, and not the obsolete-but-profitable rules that your poorly-trained staff believe are the rules?