Interlining KLM and Garuda?
 

Hi,

I am flying Business class from PER - AMS on GA (arriving 0815) and wanting to book a KLM flight from AMS - BRU at 0915. (Time is very important as I have limited amounts of it)

I really would hate to wait until 1pm for the next flight and am wondering a few things:

Both are Skyteam so would I call Garuda to interline? Or KLM? And would this even be possible?

Sorry if it sounds like a silly question but didnt want to confuse the reservations teams without asking here first since everyone is so knowledgeable!

Cheers ^

The standard MCT at AMS is 50 minutes for international to Schengen. But there is a special line for Garuda flights, stating that MCT would be 90 minutes for all arriving GA passengers in AMS. Therefore, they would not sell connections less than 90 min in AMS, and buying a separate ticket for a tighter connection will make you uneligible for baggage interlining.

There are lots for AMS to Brussels trains, so if you are not mileage running and do not absolutely need this flight to requalify, I would suggest you to look at train schedules as you seem to have a strong time constraint.

By train there are two options: Thalys highspeed or regular intercity services

here you can find the timetables

Sorry for bumping this thread, but I was searching for Garuda and interlining practices. When making the same flight as OP to Brussels (GA on CGK-AMS and KL on AMS-BRU, on a single ticket in C), my luggage was not forwarded despite a 5h layover. I took the train instead.

Oddly, while waiting for departure in the lounge, the GA checkin agent came to me to take away my boarding pass and luggage tags, saying they had given it to me by mistake, and to say I had to re-check my luggage in AMS.

I have avoided GA ever since, but maybe this weirdness was a one-off.

Instead - meaning you were originally supposed to fly?

I don't fully understand what happened here. You say that, in the lounge, they took your boarding pass and luggage receipt. That means your bag was already tagged (it appears, to your final destination BRU) and merely taking away your luggage receipt doesn't change that. Retrieving the checked baggage item that was already into the system, and re-tagging it, would be necessary if they discovered that they had (somehow) tagged it incorrectly.

Just for the avoidance of all doubt, if your travel includes train (or bus) sectors onwards from AMS, then you must always collect your luggage at AMS; intermodal journeys require the passenger to retrieve luggage before changing to the new mode of transport.

If you were actually supposed to fly, I'd love to know why you instead took the train! (Skipping a flight sector would have led to the cancellation of any further sectors, if there were any!)

Thanks. Indeed, I had 3 consecutive flights all the way to Brussels on a single Garuda ticket. The trip/ticket actually started in Palembang. There, my bag was tagged for Brussels and a luggage tag was stuck to my boarding pass. Someone identifying himself as a checkin agent came into the lounge 30 mins or so later to take them away and replace them with new ones, saying I had to collect my luggage in AMS. I handed them over but then slighty hesitated and asked why. For a brief moment, we were actually tugging both on the boarding passes. Of course I let go, even though no explanation was given and I felt quite insecure about the whole thing (even wondering who this person actually was). I suppose they had by then also retrieved and retagged my bag. The whole trip was jinxed it seems. Due to a severe delay of the PLM-CGK flight I had to make the connection to the CGK-AMS flight in about half an hour - security, immigration etc plus what felt like more than a km flat out running through various sections of CGK. I made it when the gate was about to close.

AMS-BRU was the final leg. I skipped the flight in AMS because of the 5h50 layover. In AMS I ran (again flat out) to the domestic KLM checkin with my luggage, hoping to catch the earlier flight to Brussels (there was one around 9h, i.e. 1h after the Garuda flight landed). But since my luggage was by far the last to arrive on the belt (another weirdness given the ticket class) and KLM domestic is at completely the other side of my GA arrival, I missed the cutoff by about 5-10 mins. I contemplated a bit my options but figured a Thalys would get me home a few hours quicker in quiet comfort, so I bought a train ticket. Then just to be nice, I rang the Garuda helpdesk to tell them they could vacate the AMS-BRU business class seat. They said I'd have to ring KLM.. I left it at that.