Hi,

Whenever I travel in a group all the bags are registered under 1 name (eg if there are 4 of us with 8 bags, all 8 bags will be on 1 persons name and on their boarding pass) I was not sure if this was done even when passengers are on different PNR's - but it happened when there were 4 of us on 3 different PNR's - all the bags were checked in my name

However when flying back from LA on AC this summer, my dad was flying LAX-YYZ and me, my mother and 2 siblings were flying LAX-YYZ-LHR. We had a total of 8 bags, 5 or 6 of which only needed to go to Toronto (where we live) and the other 2 on to London. We asked this to be done at check-in where they say it was impossible. I suggested they check all the bags on my father's name and we will recheck-in all of our bags in Toronto. The lady explained that the computer wouldnt let her do that without charging us as we were on different PNR's. In the end we had to take the bags to London - a huge inconvience for us and Air Canada carried about 150kg of extra baggage across the atlantic for no reason. I am not saying they were unfair / un reasonable, but I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions of what to do next time - and if all the bags could have been checked in on my dad's ticket

FWIW, the agent told us that she wouldn't put the "in transit" stickers on the bags, and that the bags checked in till LHR **might** come out in Toronto due to their absence. Surprisingly - 1 bag did

Cheers

How do you answer the questions "did you pack this bag yourself" & "has anyone been able to interfere with the bag"?

Sorry, I dont understand

You didn't HAVE TO do anything of the sort. By your own admission, you had the option to pay the excess baggage charges and get the bags off at whatever point you wanted them off. The airline offered you a value proposition which you chose to decline due to your personal circumstances. It was YOUR choice that forced circumstances, not theirs.

How tight was your connection in YYZ? Usually, I've been able to tell an airline that I want to check bags to a mid-point on my trip in order to change clothes/vary items in my carry-on/etc. Then I've rechecked to the final destination. Did you ask about this option?

Ok... fine. Change "HAD TO" to "CHOSE TO" it doesnt change the story. I am not saying that the airline was unfair or making us do anything, I was just asking if it is possible to do what I wanted them to

Yep, we asked them. When we were booking the tickets, we almost chose an overnight connection for that purpose. However, we were told that the baggage situation wouldnt change for a 23 hour stop or a 2 hour stop

This is exactly what we wanted to do...

Cheers

If you pool the luggage as you describe then the people who are going only part of the way would have to answer that they packed the bags etc. As this is clearly a lie...

I'm still quite unclear. All of us were going LAX-YYZ and we all packed our own bags. The bags that were going onwards YYZ-LHR were packed by the people going onwards to LHR...

Regulations do require airlines to check bags to the person they belong to.

Checking them all under one name complicates things if one of the bags gets lost. The person it belongs to should be making the claim. If you have checked the bag, and the lost bag belongs to someone else, it just complicates matters.

Everyone should check their own bags under their own name if they are separate families.

Ahh, okay, I see.
We were the same family though, so it should have been ok. The 5 of our things were mixed in all the bags, so each back wasn't "one person's" per say

Cheers

Well, apparently -

You, your mom and two siblings are taking 2-3 bags LAX-LHR.

Your dad is taking 5-6 bags LAX-YYZ.

Now, I don't see why the airline shouldn't charge your dad for HIS extra bags.

Well I guess if you look at it that way

I tried to make the agent see it as

the 5 of us were taking 7 bags LAX-YYZ
4 of us were taking 2 bags YYZ-LHR

Cheers