Originally Posted by
checkerboard
In the description above - which matches what TAM told me as well - the Emerald extra baggage benefit would seem to only apply when traveling in economy class. And while I personally think that's nuts, if TAM wants to apply such illogic to their own flights, I suppose that's up to them. [And I'm glad to hear that on the JFK-GIG flight, good sense and basic arithmetic prevail]
But my case was somewhat different: an AA operated and marketed flight from USA to Brazil, with a domestic-add on operated & marketed by TAM. Regardless of the latter's policy on their own flights, when issued as part of a single ticket, I'd understood the baggage allowance of AA (the over-water airline, or Most Significant Carrier) should apply to the entire journey. Mid-journey was no time to be told otherwise.
Sorry, but you are wrong. And, the "over the water" stuff from IATA 302, hasn't applied to AA since 2011.
The DOT rule simply provides that the baggage
allowance of the marketing carrier for the first segment of a ticket, applies to all segments of the ticket. This does not include waivers for additional bags extended to status, CC holders and the like.
Thus, if your first segment was AA-marketed and was USA-Brazil, your allowance was 2 bags. That same allowance applied onwards. AA could choose to adhere to IATA 302, but it doesn't and DOT thus doesn't care about over the water.
If you did not get that allowance from JJ, you have a DOT complaint against JJ.
OW itself is a marketing operation. All that will happen is that some clerical somewhere will forward the complaint to AA/JJ as the case may be. OW itself has no authority to force anybody to do anything. It is a creature of JJ (and other carriers), not the other way around.