Originally Posted by
KingCanute
Secondly, BA's policy is not to check through on separate tickets. Ordinarily the baggage policy of the ticket issuer would apply but you may be lucky at QR check in at SFO.
Originally Posted by
KingCanute
Yes I agree that the SFO check-in agents may not know the BA policies.
There is an exception to the IATA rules for Most Significant Carrier that applies to US interline itineraries, where if the first sector is a codeshare then the marketing carrier's policies apply. But those rules also say that the operating carrier is still free to decide which of the two airline's rules to apply.
To clarify, the issuing carrier is not necessarily the marketing carrier. In this case, a BA-issued award on QR would be QR-marketed. MSC really only matters when it comes to the ticketed baggage allowance. Stuff like through-tagging on separate tickets are really down to the operating carrier of the day, so BA"s policy doesn't apply here.
Another thing for the OP to keep in mind is the baggage allowance for each ticket. The SFO-DOH allowance doesn't override DOH-COK on separate tickets, so they should pack accordingly.
And yes, I agree that they should be prepared to enter Qatar and hope for a helpful agent when the time comes.