Hey folks,
Seen this come up a few times- AA has a published policy to protect in case of irrops, even on separate tickets, as long as the connection is to/from a oneworld carrier.
http://www.aa.com/i18n/agency/Bookin...tkt_policy.jsp
There is a dearth of information as to whether this is alliance-wide, and although anecdotal evidence suggests that BA/CX have been taking care of passengers, I could not find anything to suggest that this was a rule.
Wrote in to oneworld enquiring about the same - response from the VP Membership and Customer Experience below:
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Thank you for your note enquiring about through service provided in the event of separate point-to-point tickets, which our VP Corporate Communications forwarded for my review.
As an alliance, oneworld member airlines follow agreed procedures to provide through check-in service for passengers holding separate tickets involving another oneworld member airline. However, we have chosen not to highlight this service on our website.
Traveling on separate tickets for a single itinerary can compromise our member airlines’ ability to provide proper through service for our customers. For example, our ability to provide through check-in service can be compromised if passenger names are not entered in exactly the same way during the two separate booking processes; one booking under the name of Smith/JohnA (for example, in the BA system for the LHR-HKG flight) may not support proper system links to a separate reservation made under the name of Smith/JohnAlexander (for example, in the CX system for the HKG-SYD flight). While customers can overcome the through check-in concern with website check-in for both segments, further baggage handling problems may be caused by those separate check-ins, as the second carrier – in your example, CX – may not receive adequate baggage information from the first carrier.
Once a passenger is through-checked, that passenger is provided protection in the event of a flight disruption, even if the passenger has chosen to purchase separate tickets.
I hope this answers your question. Thank you for your support of our oneworld member airlines.
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Reasonably fair imho - hope this helps
Cheerios