I am going to have the following journey:
TLV - JFK - MEX - ACA - MEX - JFK - TLV

The travel is ticketed in 2 different tickets:
* Award ticket on LY: TLV - JFK - TLV
* Paid ticket on Air Mexico: JFK - MEX - ACA - MEX - JFK

While I have no issues with the outbound trip the TLV - JFK leg is on a different date than the JFK - MEX - ACA legs), the return trip is on the same day.

What happens if there are any issues with the MEX - JFK leg of Air Mexico, which makes me late to the JFK - TLV El-Al flight?

Will it be my responsibility to buy another flight?

And another question regarding that: Will Air Mexico be able to tag the luggage on MEX all the way to TLV?


Thanks in advance!


P.S.
I apologize if this is not the correct forum for this post - just let me know where it should be posted.

Unfortunately yes, your choice to buy two tickets... Your risk.

Was there any other alternative to do it, while using the LY award ticket, provided the fact that LY is not selling NYC-ACA tickets?

definitely your responsibility, if you cannot get by LY the connection tix to ACA I will recommend you to postpone the connection flight to TLV by one day

You take the risk. It is up to Air Mexico policy whether they will check through to LY on separate tickets. They may have an interline agreement but that only means they can check through, not that they will.

Probably not, you just need to allow sufficient time and be prepared to take the risk of missing the flight.

There are 8 hours between the MEX-JFK arrival and the JFK-TLV takeoff.

This should be sufficient, even if I have to pick up the luggage and recheck them with LY, in addition to the US immigration process.

Still, you can never know what delays may happen, so I just wanted to see if there is anything else I can (or could) do, in order to minimize the risk.


Thank for your inputs.

The only other thing would be to take out travel insurance that would cover a misconnect, however 8 hours should be sufficient.

Insurance which covers misconnects will not be sufficicient here. OP needs "all perils". He is not connecting at JFK, but rather terminating one itinerary and starting another. Thus, he would be a no show for the x JFK, the same as if his taxi got in an accident on the way to the airport.

Eight hours is enough, unless it isn't.

Yes misconnect was not the right word to use. Also important to read the full T&C's for any travel insurance to check it would cover this situation, as many only cover missing a flight to/from the country of residence.

Well put.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

As U.S. pre-clearance is not offered at Mexican airports, you will have to claim your checked baggage at JFK and submit to customs inspection, even if AM is willing and able to check the bags all the way through to TLV.

What are the rules on the inbound half of an LY award ticket for an LY Silver member?

The risk may be less severe than buying a whole new ticket: it may be changing the existing one for a fee. I'd want to understand how LY generally treats elites who miss flights (assuming Silver is elite of some sorts), whether the next flight or two is fully sold out, how they handle changes to the inbound half of an award ticket (e.g., whether you need a certain award bucket to be available to change), and if they have their own rules or history of handling two-PNR issues, even outside of standard rules.

Can't comment on travel insurance...in the U.S., it's not 100% clearly regulated in all 50 states, nor always clear how/if/where some of the products you see advertised are regulated. I assume you'd buy a product regulated in Israel before the start of the trip (?), and I'd just recommend doing your research before you buy any of these kinds of products.

I don't know LY awards ticket rules.
I fly AA. On awards tickets as long as the dep. and arr. cities stay the same, you can make FREE date changes--as long as the award class you are flying in is still available.
Read LY's award ticket rules carefully.