Originally Posted by
Mats
I've flown on mixed itineraries recently, including United to Air Canada and United to Lufthansa. In both cases, I was allowed to check in, but had to have my boarding cards printed at the airport. In both cases, the agent would say, "I see you're already checked in."
Since I was checking bags, it didn't matter to me that I had to stop to check in at the airport.
The bigger glitch involves the Lufthansa or Air Canada boarding cards. SHARES won't print them. I can remember getting valid onward boarding cards for Sabena from Delta in the late 90s! This was previously possible. I used Continental boarding pass, printed at SFO, for a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Paris. For some reason, the "new" SHARES won't do this.
My workaround is to use the Lufthansa app to get a mobile boarding card (available 24 hours prior to the Lufthansa flight.)
SHARES also prints out an additional "guide" to connections at Toronto, Montréal, Frankfurt, etc. The information is absolutely wrong. It advises passengers to claim their bags, proceed through security, etc. If one connects from United to Air Canada or Lufthansa there is no need to collect bags (they won't show up on the belt anyway), and no need to re-clear security.
Do you mean agents can't print them either? That sounds strange. Funnily enough, (I mentioned this in another thread recently, too) I flew CVG-ORD-NRT-BKK in Dec, with the ORD-NRT on NH. Agents at check in(this one was from Eagle, who handles PMCO flights at CVG), was able to print BPs for the NH flight, but not for the last UA segment to BKK. Tried again at the Club in ORD, with the conclusion being the issue was that 881 is a through flight ORD-NRT-BKK, and because I was only on the second segment, it isn't able to print them. No big deal, as the tranfer desk in NRT had no trouble, but still...
As for the transfer instructions, depends on destination, at least with AC. If you are connecting in YYZ, for example, with your final destination domestic in Canada (or, connecting from International with a final in Canada/US), then you do indeed need to pick up your bags, go through customs, drop your bags again, and then reclear security, so that is indeed correct. However, you are correct that transferring at YYZ from transborder/international to a non-US international destination does not require baggage pick, or re-clearing security, as well as just a cursory immigration check (so long as you are connecting from a T1 flight to a T1 flight).