Joining two tickets
 

Hello.
A British Airways LHR - KUL ticket was rebooked to Malaysia Airlines after BA cancelled the route recently.
This was purchased with Avios and a companion voucher.

At the end of my trip to SEA, I will be in Phuket.
I am thinking of purchasing a ticket using Avios, to fly from HKT to KUL with MAS, in order to link up with the flight from KUL back to LHR that same night.

I am wondering if MAS would be able to link these two separate tickets into one, so that my luggage will be through checked from HKT all the way to LHR, and more importantly, I can get a protected connection so that if the HKT - KUL flight is delayed or cancelled (thus endangering my longhaul KUL - LHR), MAS would put me on a later flight to LHR without any penalty or additional cost.

I have contacted them on Twitter, but they seem not to understand the question. They seem OK with through checking the luggage, but the rest of it seems to be a misunderstanding or language barrier.

Hoping someone here could kindly advise of the likelihood of MAS allowing 2 separate tickets to be joined into one seemless journey from HKT through to LHR (via KUL obviously). Bear in mind that the longhaul was originally a BA flight that they rebooked to MAS, and the short flight will be booked using Avios from my BAEC account.

Many thanks.

I don't think there's any chance that the two tickets will be combined into one, as one has been issued by BA, and the other, if you go ahead, will have been issued by MH.

However it's possible that you could get MH to link the bookings. That won't give you the 100% protection that you seek, but will make it more likely that if your flight from HKT to KUL is delayed and you miss your connection, MH will re-book you on the next available flight back to LHR.

Had it confirmed by MAS customer service that I can check myself and my baggage all the way through to LHR from HKT, even though these will be on 2 separate tickets.
The details are also on their website. See the counter check-in section: https://www.malaysiaairlines.com/my/.../check-in.html

Being checked through all the way does not necessarily protect you in the event of travel disruption, but it does make it much more likely that the airline would sort you out.

In this case as both sectors of your return journey would be with MH, it is extremely unlikely that they would not put you on the next available MH flight to London if your HKT-KUL leg was so late that you missed your connection. If however your onward flight from KUL was with BA, the situation may not be so favourable.

If both your tickets were booked with Avios hence issued by BA, even if operated by MH, it's BA that you'd need to contact to request the "joining" of both tickets in one PNR. YMMV but unlikely though, as BA would say they're separate tickets - from a previous experience sometime back.

Around 2 years I had a SIN-KUL ticket and then a later decision was made to goto Langkawi so I purchased a separate rickety with about 90 mins layover time.

Called the MH Platinum line and they said cannot you will need to clear immigration and collect your bags. Tried calling on another day and was told the same thing.

When I got to Changi the check in agent went sure and then survivor said its ok and showed them what to do. The flight from Singapore was a little late and annoyingly it went to the satellite terminal.

I had an airtag in my baggage and 10 mins before departure it was still showing the location as the satellite terminal. I was 99% sure that my bag wouldn't make it and it as the last flight of the night.

My bag was the very last one to come out on te belt at Langkawi haha

Interestingly earlier this year, I was flying from Amritsar to Kuala Lumpur on one MH ticket and had a separate MH ticket for my connecting flight from KL to Phuket. The connection time at KL was tight, and so on check-in at ATQ, I asked if my suitcase could be through-checked to HKT. The guy at check-in didn't know how to do it; and his supervisor thought it couldn't be done, but on my insistence he went off and found the MH station manager, who thankfully told them it could be done and showed them how. Having checked my suitcase through to HKT they then issued me boarding passes for both sectors.

The inbound flight to ATQ arrived a couple of hours late, and spent longer than scheduled on the ground, so it became clear that I would miss my connection at KUL. When I finally boarded the plane at ATQ, I crossed my fingers and tried to get some sleep.

Arriving at KUL somewhat bleary-eyed 6 hours later, there were several MH staff with name signs, and mine was on one. I was told that there would be no other flight from KUL to HKT that day, so they were re-routing me on MH to SIN and from there to HKT on SQ. I was very impressed - and jolly glad that I'd persisted in trying to get my bags checked all the way through.

In the end, the only thing that didn't make it to HKT was the book I was reading, which, thanks to the rather good red wine in the SQ lounge (Henschke's Henry's Seven, I think) I managed to leave on the plane.