Next week I am flying with 3 young children on BA (MAN-JFK) - this flight arrives JFK 12:45pm. On a seperate booking we are connecting to AA320 (JFK-MIA), departing 3:40pm. The AA ticket is a deep discounted economy (too dear to travel biz class with 5 of us).

I would like some advice as to what is AA policy if we miss the JFK-MIA flight due to delay of the BA flight.

As it happened, yesterday in Manchester there was a power failure at the airport which resulted in cancelled/delayed flights. The MAN-JFK flight was delayed 3 hours (arrived 3:37pm into JFK).

Having 3 young ones with us, I am somewhat concerned regarding this possibility.

Many thanks for your advice

Although AA have no legal obligation if the BA flight is delayed, I would expect them to rebook you on the next available flight if you miss-connect, particularly if you get BA to issue the AA BPs in MAN (should not be a problem, even with separate tickets).

That is, unless anyone has had a different experience?

It might also help to phone AA from the UK before you leave if it looks like you might miss your connection.

Call AA and ask them to "link" the two reservations.

My experience with AA was different, probably because it involved a LCC in Europe.

AA ORD-FRA was delayed by 2 hours. As a result I missed my Ryan air flight to FRL (BLQ). AA denied any responsibility and said because it was a separate ticket there was nothing they can or should do for me.

I would hope your experience would be difference due to OW.

First of all, is this a nesting ticket? I presume you are flying back the same routing.
Are there other AA flights after yours?
What would you like AA to do for you? Most likely it will be a BA solution, not an AA solution.
Keep in mind that if you miss your AA flight and do not call, their policy is to cancel all segments. If you get a nasty GA, you will have some troubles getting this reinstated. You will be able to do it, but just be aware of that potential pitfall as well.

Good Luck

[QUOTE=Deltahater;8196986]
What would you like AA to do for you? Most likely it will be a BA solution, not an AA solution. /QUOTE]
On one ticket a missed connection would be BA's responsibility. On two tickets you rely on the good will of AA. But given their flat tire policy I would expect you to be rebooked.

If BA gets the OP and family to their final destination (as shown on the BA ticket, i.e. JFK) it has no further responsibility. The OP would be wasting his time trying to talk to BA.

Linking two reservations may help a bit, but it does not create a legal obligation. Booking two separate tickets is rarely a good idea, and even less so when traveling with kids..

Depends how much risk you think there is that AA won't help out if you miss the connection?

I buy these sort of tickets and hope I will be OK if I do miss my connection ...

I agree. There are times that it makes a lot of sense.

For example, my last london trip took advantage of some very cheap JFK-LHR J fares plus triple mile bonus. I booked separate tix from TUL-JFK.

Sure, it was somewhat inconvenient and there's a risk, but if you leave yourself plenty of time, it's quite doable.

Are you sure about this? It seems to me that BA especially under Eu rules has an obligation to compensate the pax. This AFAIK, implies a responsibility to help the pax with his AA ticket.

Contrary to a popular belief, the EU Regulation does not provide for any monetary compensation in case of delay.

In case of a long delay, BA would only have a responsibility to help the PAX at the point of origin, i.e. in MAN (see http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?ca...90&pageid=4404).

Anecdotally, 2-3 years ago I was flying ZRH-LHR//-ORD-SFO on separate BA//AA tickets (which saved me about $600 as compared to one ticket), and the BA flight ZRH-LHR was delayed by about 3 hours. Thus, I arrived LHR about 30 minutes prior to my LHR-ORD flight. Despite a good sprint to the flight connections center, clearly I was not going to make the connection.

I jogged over to the AA ticket counter, handed them my ticket, and they said "well, nice try, but you won't make it!" They immediately put me on the next flight, an hour or two later, without any problems. Of course, that wasn't JFK with summer loads at what they are now.

-Hayden

No, in terms of AA's response, it wouldn't be different at all. If your following flight was on BA instead of Ryanair, AA would still deny any responsibility, since they legally do not have any. But as mentioned above, BA, not being an LCC, would likely put you on the next available flight out of goodwill (the aforementioned "flat tire policy").

LCC's on the other hand generally make it very clear that if you miss your flight's minimum check-in time by even a minute, you're out-of-luck and need to buy a new ticket. This is presumably part of their revenue plan.

I have no experience of this in the order that the OP plans to fly - misconnecting to an AA flight because of a delayed BA flight.

I do, however, have experience going the other way around - misconnecting to a BA flight because of a delayed AA flight - and it wasn't a good one.

Our AA DEN-ORD-LHR flights were seriously delayed because of weather. AA rebooked us on our connecting LHR-EDI flights (which were on separate tickets) and issued us with BPs and checked our bags all the way through to EDI.

When we came to board the EDI flight at LHR we were denied boarding by the BA GAs. We were given the choice of buying new tickets or having our bags unloaded. We tried to tough it out, reckoning that common sense would prevail and that they wouldn't delay the flight just to get our bags off. Wrong! Bags came off and we had to buy new tickets.

BA offered us a 'special unpublished fare' that they have to 'help' people in this situation. Asked at the BD counter - they offered tickets at significantly less than the BA special.

Let me throw you a possible curvball. Please recheck your documents. It may have been a typo, but you posted you are taking AA320 JFK-MIA. AA320 is actually a MIA-LGA flight. Even if it is a typo, please recheck everything now. One of the most common errors I have seen when using seperate bookings Europe to US via NYC is to be setup arriving into JFK and departing LGA. This could be a huge problem, at the wrong time of day this can add over an hour just to get between the 2 airports. Even at the right time of day you'll need at least 30 minutes under the best conditions. Then of course recheck luggage and all of this AFTER having to clear customs/immigration at JFK.

BA will not be able to issue the BPs - for some reason the system is set up to suppress this for a seperate booking. Even AA at LGW were unable to help - because of the bag recheck you have to reanswer the security questions in the US.