Originally Posted by
jerry a. laska
Very interesting and detailed read, thanks for the link.
This bit would seem to be the section that covers my experience:
Originally Posted by tripadvisor
FREQUENT FLIER AND CLASS OF SERVICE BENEFITS ARE NOT APPLIED TO ALL DOWNSTREAM FLIGHTS
The one area when baggage allowances can differ is when additional bonus allowances are provided by the FMC for class of service (e.g. business class) or frequent flier benefits. The downstream airline is not forced to provide those benefits (e.g. 3 free bags for an economy flight); they only have to apply the base allowance which is the FMC’s standard economy allowance. In practice, downstream airlines will provide additional allowances if you fly with them in a premium cabin (their own business class allowance) and if they are an alliance partner (alliance benefit allowance).
To be honest, I never knew there was such a thing as a "base allowance" or "standard economy allowance" for each carrier. Rather, I'd understood that each ticket was governed by its own rules, with some (e.g. - BA's HBO fares) offering zero free checked bags, and others offering specific limits according to the piece concept (eg. xONEx tkts) or the weight concept (eg. Seaman's tickets, which allow 40kgs in economy).
And so, when a business class ticket is notated with a "3PC" baggage allowance, I'd never have guessed that this was composed of a base-allowance + a bonus-allowance, and that only the former would apply to downstream connecting sectors. In my specific case, even TAM didn't argue this - since they recognized that my ticketed allowance was indeed 3-pieces. They just balked at granting an additional free piece on account of my OneWorld Emerald status. And since the extra baggage benefit is an explicit OneWorld benefit (which I sincerely value), I was a bit stunned at the incoherent grounds on which TAM resisted to offer it.