Originally Posted by
AMRivlin
I may be mistaken, but I never knew interlining to be a Star Gold benefit and thought it to be a benefit of the Alliance in general.
Flying two tickets same day:
ZQN-CHC (NZ ticket)
CHC-SFO (UA ticket)
The agent flat refused, had a manager come over to tell me they can't see UA flights in their system even with my PNR, when I pressed; "if I was Star Alliance Gold you can", he shut down and directed me to the standard bag check.
I have 2.5 hrs in Auckland and free bags on all legs, just annoying to play these games.
Simply, AirNZ is under no obligation to thru check bags on separate tickets. As far as NZ is concerned you are a domestic pax to AKL, and why would they take on additional work to manage you bag to the UA flight…?
Interlining is really only relevant if all flights are on a single PNR, and mostly irrespective of alliances.
From a system point of view, of course it is quite possible to do this, and some airlines/agents will do so - either as policy (eg for pax with status) or as an exception to policy (kind agent).