AA Protection on separate oneworld tickets / PNR
 

My intention is to purchase the following tickets:

Cash fare: HAV-MIA

BA Avios redemption (following day): MIA-DCA

Looking through previous threads, it would appear that AA is unique in that it will offer protection for separately booked tickets in the event of a delay. Does this protection extend to partner redemptions?

I.e. if my evening flight from Havana is delayed or cancelled and I miss my morning flight onward from MIA, will AA get me to DCA (or IAD/BWI)?

Yes -- but be aware that not all AA agents are aware of the policy, so you might have to escalate to a supervisor. If your HAV-MIA flight is cancelled, AA might even re-route you out of HAV, if it serves other U.S. airports besides MIA from HAV.

Yes--the policy covers oneworld ticketed/operated travel, regardless of method of payment.

Thanks for the responses. I'll go ahead and get that booked.

Does this only apply if AA is the second carrier? As in, AA connecting to QR on separate tix, I miss the QR flight due to AA delay, QR is not required to protect me, correct?

The obligation rests with the carrier triggering the missed connection, not the carrier you are connecting to. If the delay involves an AA flight, AA bears responsibility to get you to your destination.

Interesting. How would that be handled? I'm going into the exact

While that is the general policy, AA is unique in that it protects connections AA-AA, AA-OW and OW-AA. Thus, in the example of separate tickets QR-AA, AA would handle a reroute, while QR would not.

In theory AA does offer protection across separate tickets as long as the other carrier is oneworld, as mentioned above. However in practice these situations are still very much YMMV depending on each specific incident. AA's separate ticket protection policy is certainly not very well publicized (buried in some travel agent docs, IIRC), and it's not as easy as just showing up at the ticket counter and getting rebooked 5 mins later.

I have misconnected several times on separate tickets over the years, but in all cases it was the AA flight I missed, so it was easy for AA agents to rebook me to my final destination. Things can get very tricky when it's a separate ticket on another carrier that a delayed AA flight has caused you to miss. In these cases, you'd have to find a very helpful/knowledgeable agent (most likely at an AC) that was willing to liaise with the other carrier to get you rebooked.

Unfortunate, but not surprising. Apparently, there is a "Global Support" team at major oneworld stations. https://www.oneworld.com/global-support

Maybe a proactive agent with "problem" carrier could send a message to this team if one is booked in separate records to facilitate making a close connection or rebooking missed flights.

I think I remember a website link some time ago? Do we have the official policy document somewhere or know how to best reference it to an AA agent if necessary?

I find this so confusing. They will not through-check a bag on separate award tickets within OW (ex, CUZ/LIM on LAN; LIM/DFW on AA) that meet MCT and have to purchased separately because of award availability, yet they will do this?

Yes. That is AA's (current) policy.

I posted my experience last fall with separate ticket protection going from AA to BA here: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...erience-2.html

AA flights were delayed by weather. I dealt with AA agents over the phone.

Key takeaway from the experience which might save time in the future...

AA needs to take over control of the other OW ticket, so the agent needs your ticket number. In my case, they merged it into my existing AA PNR, and I was rebooked as if a missed connection on that itinerary.