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Old Jun 16, 2019, 2:05 am
  #19  
ChrisBub
 
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: BRU
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Originally Posted by plunet
When I was at ARN one of the early economy check ins who had gone to a check in desk two positions away from where I was standing was trying to get s check through on their luggage and getting no where. I was not close enough to hear the detail but I thought they were trying to go beyond QR policy and the check-in agent wasn't being pursuaded.

I would be surprised if of all the airlines they might check through to, EK is likely to be the bottom of the list due to the current political situation. Personally I wouldn't do or expect this to work, and it is bad enough that QR check in agents don't all know the actual QR policy to check through to Oneworld.

I guess the question you need to ask yourself is if they do not grant your request, to check through at ARN what is your backup plan? Can you get through immigration, baggage delivery (which can be slow), customs, up to check-in floor, back through immigration, and security in time to make the connection?

Indeed, without check-through there is no chance of making the connection. I was also surprised the QR Twitter team said it was possible to through check onto Emirates. I had also given them my entire itinerary so it’s not as if they didn’t have all the relevant information to hand. I had the opposite experience with SQ a few weeks back, but that’s another story.

Anyway, our backup plan was to either stay the night in Bangkok or connect the PG onward connection (where we know for sure QR will not transfer our luggage, hence going through visa process etc), which is 3h45min after we land. But I can’t find any refundable PG tickets and the prices are not insignificant. Or, we would stay the night in BKk and fly the next day to REP with One of the numerous Cambodian Airlines.

In both these cases, though, my partner would need to get VOA in Thailand, then leave the next day latest and then come back into Thailand a week or so later, and costs for those (unless they extend the free VOA scheme) are over €100 including original VOA and re-entry stamp, so obviously getting straight through to Cambodia and then coming into Thailand at a later date are more desirable. I can get in visa-exempt.

Our primary aim with all this hassle is avoid having to get the VOA after arriving to BKK.

We got a great J QR deal, hence our arrival to BKK, and as far as I’ve been able to find out, I cannot add the later PG flight to the QR PNR, so it’s either get some further confirmation from QR of what the Twitter team said to get the EK flight, take the risk with the 3h45min transfer (including VOA -in high season) and fly with PG, or stay the night and fly the next day, which is not a huge issue, but just makes us feel a bit like we are missing out on a day of our already quite short trip.

Thanks very much for your response on this though as it reinforced my own gut feeling about that QR twitter response.

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