Jetblue/El Al interlining
 

My parents will be flying from Home State to NYC on Jet Blue and then connecting on El Al in business class from JFK to Israel.

1. The tour company they booked everything through tells them that they can check all their checked baggage straight through to the final destination. Are they better off collecting the bags at JFK and rechecking them? They have a long layover - 6 hours or so - but I imagine they will have to switch terminals with everything which may be annoying. I fly out of JFK regularly but never had to switch terminals, so I am not sure how easy it is to do this.

2. The El Al business baggage weight allowance is higher than the Jetblue allowance, which controls?

3. I assume they're going to want to credit the flight to Jet Blue if possible, yes? This is their first time on El Al and no future plans to travel on it.
They fly JB all the time.

I just wanted to add that I have no idea if the flights are on the same ticket. The confirmation email from the tour company just lists the flights.

Thanks!

They'll want to find out if it's on one ticket. JetBlue has, on paper, been a little tougher to interline bags with partners on separate tickets. Unofficially, I've been told they'll try as a courtesy, but it's at the discretion of the gate agent at check-in on the outbound and longer layovers at JFK will help your case.

Thank you. I did find my parents' record locators and have 2 - 1 for El Al and 1 for Jet Blue. But the El Al record shows the jet blue flights. Does that help?

Quite likely it is a single ticket through and that the bags will be tagged through from the origin. In that case the El Al rules will apply.

There is no way to earn TrueBlue points for flying on El Al so that's not so useful.

Thank you!