Booking multiple carrier flights
 

Although I've been a member here for a while, I never seen an answer to my question... it is possibly very basic and the answer is obvious... but I would still like to have a definitive one.

When flying internationally with stops, can I (and is it desirable) book the separate segments on different carriers on my own and still get luggage checked all the way to my destination?? if so, what are the pros and cons?? would it be more expensive?? I use agents few times before it is almost always not worth it and I had less than ideal experience ... booking on my own online was always a breez but there are some destinations that I cannot make with one booking on my preferred airlines.

I appreciate all input.... details also appreciated since I'm not much of an expert as most people on this forum.

In short: it depends.

What dates and routes are you interested in?

You can mix and match airlines on almost any ticket, as long as the airlines have interline ticketing agreements with each other. In terms of pricing, it depends on the fare rules. In some cases, the total fare will be the sum of fares on each airline. In other cases, one airline could publish a fare, which allows travel on another airline (excluding codeshares.) This applies mainly for international fares.

In terms of baggage, call the airlines directly and see if they have an interline baggage agreement. Most do.

Welcome to FT. :)

It's not clear exactly what you want to do, but keep in mind that there's a huge advantage to booking multiple segments on ONE ticket instead of multiple segments on multiple tickets. If you book multiple segments on multiple tickets and the first flight is late, causing you to miss the subsequent flights, you may run into hassles with the other tickets. It's much safer to book them all on one ticket if possible.

Thank you all for your replies.

looks like I was not clear enough in my original post, so I will try to clarify.

My preferred airline does not fly to my ultimate destination, but they do fly half-way to Europe. I can book on another airline from Europe to my ultimate destination but neither airline allow me to do that in one ticket on their web site (even though both are member of Star Alliance). My question was... can I make separate reservations on my own without much of a hassle??

from the replies it seems that if I do it on my own I would have trouble with luggage or connections.... so, is my only option is dealing with a travel agent??

Could you achieve your preferred booking by using Travelocity.com , Expedia.com , travelzoo.com or some other website? I have booked multi-carrier tickets with the above in the past.

Travel agent or web site. You can force the routing through a web site. Individual airline websites try to minimize selling seats on another carrier, even though the fare rules may permit it! :)

Please continue the discussion here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...l#post25955149