Microwave

If it were me, I'd take a 135 minute connection at BCN. Barring a delay it should be plenty of time, and delays could scupper a connection of any length so it's hard to make any itinerary 'delay-proof'. I wouldn't consider this an especially short connection.

Macrinus, when you check your bags at your airport of departure, your tags will show where they're checked to—they should show your final destination, not BCN. You will arrive to T1 at BCN, and also depart from T1, which is as convenient a connection as one can make at BCN. When you land, you'll need to follow signs for connecting flights, and as you're originating outside Schengen and your destination is in the Schengen area, you'll need to proceed through both passport control and security before getting to your gate. The airport should be reasonably well signed (helpfully displayed in English, Spanish and Catalan). As connections go, this is definitely not one of the tougher options you could have ended up with. Safe travels!

njvandy

95% chance you will be totally fine with a 135 minute connection. In the extremely unlikely scenario of a misconnect, VY operates a flight 3 hours later to CTA (Catania) and from there you could take a taxi/bus to your final destination in Sicily.

Macrinus

Microwave, we can't thank you enough ! Sincerely, appreciate your "spoon feeding" an old couple !

I presume we have to pick up our bags upon arrival and then immediately check them in again ...is there another close by conveyor belt for connections so they would get to vueling? I was hoping we wouldn't have to drag them over to the vueling gate, per se.

Also, I went out to the DFW priority ticket counter yesterday and spoke to an actual gate agent. She looked everything up and assured me that we are confirmed on the vueling flight leg. Another concern was that its the only leg without seat assignments printed out on our e ticket. She said no worries, definitely confirmed on the flight and we would be assigned seats when we show up at the vueling gate in BCN. She said not to worry that we can't view anything on the vueling website.

Macrinus

Thank you for that insight about Catania ! Good to know in the event of plan B needing to happen.

seawolf

Bag will be checked thru. AA wouldn't selling a flight involving another carrier without an interline agreement in place.

Macrinus

Thank you seawolf we appreciate your advice

Macrinus

Sea Wolf just to confirm what I think Ive heard, with an interline agreement and code share, in our case AA sold us a ticket starting in Dallas and flying to Palermo Sicily with getting on Vueling in BCN to PMO for the final leg.. All segments on one ticket, one itenerary means when I'm checked in to start with AA the morning we begin I am checked in for all segments, receive my boarding passes and have my bags checked through to Palermo ?

Thanks for your help.

seawolf

yes AA should check bags thru to final destination and for the most part should be able to issue BP for VY as well barring some technical issue. But definite should check bags thru.

Macrinus

If for some technical reaon perhaps as you describe...AA can't give us a BP for Yueling starting out the day when we ccheck in at the american desk.....when we arrive at BCN, preseuming the bags are on their way, do we go through passport control, security again and then head for Vuelings departure gate in Terminal 1 ??? What do we present to them at the gate....Passports and itenerary and say AA is adamant that we're confirmed on this flight ?? and ask for seat assignments Can you help us understand what we'd need to do, please ?

VegasGambler

The gate can always print you a BP if you need one. Have your passports ready, of course.

This is sometimes necessary with partner flights. Last year I flew PHX-ORD-HEL with the 2nd leg on Finnair. AA printed BPs for both legs but at the gate in ORD they announced that everyone who had a BP printed by AA needed to get in line to have one printed by AY.

Also people lose BPs all the time (once I threw one out with the bag and wrappers from my burger at the airport). No big deal; the GA can just print another one.

Macrinus

thanks Vegas Gambler

Please forgive our very base level understanding....but we would do this at the Vueling departure gate correct ? We arrive on AA in Terminal 1 at Barcelona....then go to immigration / passport control......then go through security again.....then proceed directly to the Vueling departure gate which is also in Terminal 1 at Barcelona and present ourselves with documents for the final leg to Palermo ??? I'm assuming bags would be checked through and we not have to touch them ??

Thanks for this we haven't flown for quite a while (especially during COVID) except minor trips domestically.....this is the first intl flight for a very long time. I want to be sure were prepared and can motor our 70 something year old bodies around where we need to go.

S80

From my understanding, in this specific instance, it is due to the international nature of the flight, Finnair wants to check that everyone has a good chance of being allowed entry to Finland, and they do this via having a physical boarding pass printed by a Finnair agent. On my recent flights, despite being assured by AA that they've scanned by Passport and I'm good to go, I've always needed to get a boarding pass printed by BA (in my case) to board the BA flight, even though it's codeshared by AA and all on one reservation. Macrinus, this shouldn't apply to you, as your flight is within the Schengen area, hence no checks.
If AA (for whatever reason) cannot give you a boarding pass for your Veuling flight (I've had this happen once on a flight, but the flight was more than 24 hours out due to an overnight connection, so I couldn't be checked in at all), you will need to head to Veuling pre-security at BCN. If AA does give you a boarding pass, then you can get one (if needed, most likely not given the nature of the flight) from Veuling's gate agents at the gate.
As for your bags, as long as the bag tag is tagged with your final destination (ask the agent when you check in where it is tagged to, as some are quick to tag and throw on the conveyor), then your bag will get to your final destination. As for return to the US, I believe all bags do need to be picked up and re-checked if continuing on to another destination, even though they are tagged, because of US specific customs rules (although a more seasoned FT'er can provide specifics here).

Macrinus

to the forum

If our bags are tagged to the final destination which is Palermo for us...the nagging question is why wouldn't AA give us boarding passes at the start of the trip including the Vueling leg to Palermo in Barcelona ? If I understand the groups feedback posts to us, if they don't give us boarding passes when we check in at DFW to start the trip with AA...... we'll have to exit after going through passport control / immigration .....and go to the initial Vueling counter (not the departure gate) show our passports and AA itnerary and assert that AA has sold us a seat on their flight and we should get boarding passes, I promise....then go through security again and head for the departure gate ??? I don't understand how AA could sell us those seats under that scenario.

Also, if the bags are checked through to PMO final destination....and we don't have passes and have to go out landside with our tin cups and petition for passes at the Vueling counter...and we can't make the time window and don't make the flight...we'll be spending a couple of days in barcelona without bags as Vueling only operates this flight off and on ??? and there is a real chance we could never see those bags again.(according to Vueling complaints I've read online) Makes me worry a lot...I'm having second thoughts about this vacation.

I've talked to the Advantage desk 4 different times, after ungodly hold wait periods and call backs + gone out to the DFW airport and spoken to 2 different priority check in agents. The disconcerting thing is that there are enough differences among what they say to give one pause. One of the sirport agents I spoke to said that if she was checking us in we'd get passes ?? Am I overdoing this and shouldn't worry ? thanks for everything members have provided us

S80

You're doing the right thing by asking here and asking AA, so you are going to show up to each airport prepared and ready with the information to know what to do should any number of things go wrong. The cause of this is that you're doing an itinerary that agents don't often see, particularly at smaller outstations that see less traffic, so it isn't a daily occurrence for the agents, and the training isn't uniform across the board unfortunately, so discrepancies can occur, which is why you're getting some differences with responses.

As for your boarding pass and bags. The expectation is that AA should tag your bags and give you boarding passes so you both get on the Veuling flight with no issues. However, some airlines for some destinations require that to board their flight, they (not another airline) must issue you a boarding pass. Whether that's to check something off in their system, do a document check, whatever, they want that. In that case, you'll just need to speak to Veuling airside (at the gate) and get second a boarding pass for your Veuling flight.

In the other case, your bags won't be tagged and you won't receive an boarding pass (or very unlikely, one or the other), if one of those is not right, you'll need to speak to Veuling pre-security.

I hope that clarifies things, but please let us know if it doesn't, we all want you to not have to worry and have a great trip.

VSLover

while disconcerting, it is a normal thing. even some aa-aa itineraries cannot produce boarding cards in all cases due to various reasons. meanwhile, vueling is the ....... step child of iberia so is always in its own little corner for many reasons.

i would not stress if you do not get a boarding card for the vueling flight upon check in and have to obtain one in spain--your seats are assured--it will just be the need to obtain a document check (if you are a US citizen) and print the card. but asking here, always best to be prepared!