jagmeets

Hey folks,

Seen this come up a few times- AA has a published policy to protect in case of irrops, even on separate tickets, as long as the connection is to/from a oneworld carrier.

http://www.aa.com/i18n/agency/Bookin...tkt_policy.jsp

There is a dearth of information as to whether this is alliance-wide, and although anecdotal evidence suggests that BA/CX have been taking care of passengers, I could not find anything to suggest that this was a rule.

Wrote in to oneworld enquiring about the same - response from the VP Membership and Customer Experience below:
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Thank you for your note enquiring about through service provided in the event of separate point-to-point tickets, which our VP Corporate Communications forwarded for my review.

As an alliance, oneworld member airlines follow agreed procedures to provide through check-in service for passengers holding separate tickets involving another oneworld member airline. However, we have chosen not to highlight this service on our website.

Traveling on separate tickets for a single itinerary can compromise our member airlines’ ability to provide proper through service for our customers. For example, our ability to provide through check-in service can be compromised if passenger names are not entered in exactly the same way during the two separate booking processes; one booking under the name of Smith/JohnA (for example, in the BA system for the LHR-HKG flight) may not support proper system links to a separate reservation made under the name of Smith/JohnAlexander (for example, in the CX system for the HKG-SYD flight). While customers can overcome the through check-in concern with website check-in for both segments, further baggage handling problems may be caused by those separate check-ins, as the second carrier – in your example, CX – may not receive adequate baggage information from the first carrier.

Once a passenger is through-checked, that passenger is provided protection in the event of a flight disruption, even if the passenger has chosen to purchase separate tickets.

I hope this answers your question. Thank you for your support of our oneworld member airlines.
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Reasonably fair imho - hope this helps
Cheerios

angatol

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jagmeets

Agree. Suppose the best thing to do would be to always get both the carriers to cross-reference the PNRs- Info Segment etc. and request for a through check..

LondonElite

Thank you for publishing this. It's useful information to have as a reference point.

whimike

So, if I understand correctly, for the protection to exist, all flights have to be linked and through checked-in? I.e. I just had a recent flight, BOS-DFW-HKG on an AA ticket and HKG-MLE ticketed on BA but on CX metal. For protection I would somehow have to check in for all flights at BOS? Is it even possible for AA to check me in on a BA ticketed CX flight, and issue a boarding pass?!

How would one go about linking the two tickets? Last time I talked to AA they couldn't even view tickets with a BA record locator.

shorthauldad

What does "through-check" actually mean if there is no checked baggage?

angatol

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jagmeets

Most of my experience has been CX to/from AA and a couple of times with LA, and in the past I've received boarding passes for the 'separate ticket' segment(s) when checking in for the first flight.

AA has definitely checked me in for CX flights on a separate ticket (as has CX, for both AA and LA).

I've cross referenced AA and CX tickets in the past - suppose it should be similar for AA and BA. Call up one, and give the PNR and ticket number for the other. I did, once have a clueless AA phone agent once, but HUACA sorted that out.

jagmeets

Pure conjecture on my part, but perhaps getting the originating airline to issue the boarding pass for the next ticket should take care of things?
Have done that CX->AA, CX->LA, AA->CX and know of people who have done UL->CX, MH->UL, MH->JL and CX->JL

(and I did have an unsuccessful attempt at LA->CX, but that was because I was checking in on a third LA ticket, for a LA->LA->CX on 3 different tickets, and they could only manage LA->LA on separate tickets..and the check in agent/supervisor had been pretty grouchy)

intub8r

I have an upcoming AA --> CX and return, and I was more or less banking on this policy for the outbound, not sure how it would work on the return. It sounds like the "checking an empty cardboard box" is a fantastic idea, since I plan to not have any luggage. It would force them to "link" the tickets at the airport, whether or not they could issue a boarding pass (although you would think if they could check the bag, they could do the BP too. But you never know.)

Thank you OP for getting something more definitive!

angatol

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Himeno

BA did that to me last year. They caused a misconnection and wouldn't fix it on the same ticket. They left it to EK (as QF handler in DXB) to sort out. They wouldn't even answer the phone when EK tried to call them.

Himeno

The last few times I've deal with cross ticket connections in Spain with IB (IB-IB and IB-BA), they haven't checked bags through and I had to recheck at MAD. The time they did, they used a manual baggage check and the bag got misplaced at LHR.

JohnAx

It means the pax has been checked in and has bp's to his final destination.

Like everything else about "OneWorld" it's up to the whim and/or skill of the check-in agent whose desk you're standing at. Once BA at LHR could not issue bp for a cnx to IB at FCO (especially amusing since their signs all blaze 'British Airways / Iberia'), another time CX handed me bp's for the next four flights, including themselves, BA, and AA and was about to tag the bags until I pointed out a RON where I'd want them.

IMO the 'gold' in this thread is the acknowledgement that OW is supposed to protect pax across separate tix. Alas no self-respecting agent will give much credence to "I read it on FlyerTalk" - it would be nice if the poster could provide a jpg or something of the original correspondence from OW that we could all carry around in our passport case.

JohnAx

I'm pretty sure it's a BA requirement that *all* bags get misplaced at LHR. Maybe it's a security thing. Occasionally they screw up and load one as tagged.