Originally Posted by
CDKing
you cant merge tickets. Separate tickets rarely work well without a good buffer. Thats why i'm leaving myself 2 days in LAX connecting to my EK award.
I don't know that I'd say that. I've done separate tickets numerous times, and never had a problem. Of course, I do understand I'm taking a risk...but I would definitely not say it's "rare" for separate tickets to work well. Rather I'd say usually it works just fine, but do understand that the risk is on you if you misconnect. However, even that is still all in theory - more than likely, if the OP showed up at the BA counter in LHR having missed onward travel to CDG, BA would merely put him on the next available flight - YMMV, of course. I know of cases where it has not happened this way. Your chances of having a significant problem are about the same as your frequency of having significant airline delays (which is honestly relatively infrequent). That is, unless you're superstitious, in which case it is a near guarantee that you'll misconnect due to the longest delay of your life...
Originally Posted by
beckoa
Wirelessly posted (beckoa's BB: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.694 Mobile Safari/534.11+)
Bring paper copies of both itineraries. Assuming the minconnect is observed, this should be feasible if AS is the first carrier you're flying. Plan on this taking some extra time to accomplish at checkin.
This is based on the first segment being AS operated. I'm not sure how AA would work, and if it turns out its all AA/BA this is best addressed in the AA forum.
Wow...I'm just defiant tonight. But again, I disagree. I have frequently flown on separate tickets, on multiple carriers. With a copy of my itinerary, I would say this has almost never taken any significant time at checkin. Once, AS had trouble figuring out how to tag my ticket onto a go! connection. Once AS had trouble getting my bags through on DL and SAA - but that was because I had 6 segments - apparently more than their system can handle. The only real trouble I've ever had was in OAX - the AM agent claimed that they couldn't check my bag through to my AS flight. Maybe I shouldn't admit that, but I was on THREE separate tickets that time - OAX - MEX on AM, MEX - ATL - ORD on DL, and finally ORD - ANC on AS. I had 2:30 in MEX between AM and DL, and 1:13 at ORD between DL and AS. Yeah, I realize that was a bit reckless...but the point being most of the time it will work. That was the one and only case I had trouble interlining bags. That said, don't show up at the last minute, but I don't think you need to factor in more than 5 extra minutes for this.
BTW, on the 3 separate tickets AM, DL, AS itin, everything went just fine. I collected my bags in MEX and rechecked them through to ANC. DL was delayed into ORD, but I made it to the gate - cut it WAY closer than I'd hoped, maybe wouldn't do it again, but I did make it.
Originally Posted by
missydarlin
Is there no availability to just change your award ticket to Paris instead of London?
This is the best advice here - what about changing your itin to go from SEA to CDG?? Of course, it would be dependent on space. If you're gold or more than 60 days out from travel, the fee should be waived (unless you booked it before the new change fees went into place - not sure what's done in that case.
Oh, and final thought, AA/OneWorld DOES have the most customer friendly policy regarding Separate tickets. I'm not sure if having this AS issued (027 stock) would make this a sticking point or not - it shouldn't, but who knows.
AA's separate ticket policy.