Hi, not sure where to post this, but I'll try in this and BA forums. I'll try to be as short as possible. My friend and her daughter were traveling to London. JFK-BOS on AA and BOS-LHR on BA. The flight was on January 1st. At JFK when they checked in at the kiosk the machine gave then boarding passes only until BOS. They were later told by the AA attendant that they'd get BOS-LHR BP at BOS. At BOS BA agant told them that they never checked in and that the check in is closed, there was one hour remaining until the flight. They said it was AA mistake made at JFK and BA is "not responsible for AA mistakes" (nice OW partner, I have to say). BA offered 9:25PM flight, but then said it was overbooked and even on the stand by there was no chance. They were told to go to AA counter (at a different terminal) and speak to them since that was their problem. When they got there the counter there was no one there. About 20 min later an AA employee showed up. The woman looked at the computer and said that BA should have put them on that flight, there were empty seats available in Business. There were no more flights out of BOS that night, no any flights to JFK. They were not able to retrieve their luggage because no one knew where it was. They ended up taking a BUS back to New York late at night. Almost a week later she had to drive back to BOS to look for her back because AA could not locate it. And of course, the bag was there all the time.

So, the question is what to do and how to get a refund. Neither AA or BA seem to care at all.

without yet getting into which airline was responsible, one thing to know is whether your friend had one ticket number that included both the AA and BA segments, or two separate ticket numbers i.e. one for JFK-BOS and another for BOS-LHR.

If the former (1 ticket for both segments), then the bags should definitely have been checked through to LHR, and the bag tags would reflect that final destination. There should be no question if only 1 ticket number covered the whole journey that AA check in somehow messed up her check in. She should write to AA customer service concisely explaining the issue and requesting a check for the ticket value, if not additional compensation for the inconveniences.

If the latter (2 ticket numbers per person), then she (and similarly her daughter) were responsible for checking in with their bags at BOS at or before the closing of the check in window. However, since AA and BA are oneworld partners, in such a situation, they are often able to check through bags, check you in on both flights anyway and provide boarding passes as a courtesy. In this case, it seems to me that the bag tags provide strong evidence of whether or not your friend was actually told that she and her daughter were checked through to LHR. If the bag tags only show BOS as the destination, it is probably going to be tough to convince AA or BA that they were at fault for your friend not providing enough connecting time to pick up bags at BOS and recheck in for LHR. They are likely to claim that the AA check in meant that they needed to check in at BOS (not just pick up boading passes) and that your friend misunderstood. Even if your friend heard correctly, it's a he said she said situation if the bag tags only show BOS as a destination. Your friend has no other proof than those bag tags if there were separate ticket numbers for each flight. Hope she kept them!

An important detail is whether they arrived at the BA counter to talk to the agent a little bit more than one hour before the flight or a little bit less than one hour before the flight, assuming that the BA cutoff for coach passengers (with no bags to check?) at BOS is one hour. How much time did they have between the two flights at BOS and how does this compare to MCT for D-I, AA-BA there?

This is being discussed in the BA forum (you shouldn't double post on FT!), where it's been revealed that it was one ticket issued by Expedia/Priceline/Travelocity and the bag was apparently tagged through to LHR.

Sorry, I didn't know which forum to post it too, Mods should probably merge them now. I will post more details to the BA forum.

FYI, FT T&C prohibit cross posting.

For what it's worth, if things are as you say, and if AA caused the disruption, AA is responsible for the rebooking since it is a OW partner, regardless of if they are ticketed separately.

Until such time as the threads are merged, if indeed that happens, here's a link to the parallel thread which contains many of the questions asked or likely to be asked:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...situation.html

It does appear to be an AA issue.