Do you ever take different airlines on the same trip?
 

I am about to book an agenda, and I was curious if others take different airlines on the same trip. I live near ACY, but that reswtricts me to Air Tran & Spirit. I try to avoid PHL (for obvious reasons), so I am going to SAN, and the times worked out great to take Air Tran RT, ACY-ATL, and DL RT, ATL-SAN. I leave plenty of connection time, but the looming thought is always if there is a substantial delay in one leg, I am SOL because each carrier is only concerned with their ticket. Any one else book like this?

I've done it before in Asia and Europe without issue. Just allow plenty of time for your connection. If you have any checked bags, you should be able to check them all the way through if you show the ACY agent your continuing ticket.

I try not to book tickets like that in airports I am not familiar with to prevent needing to reclear security. Since all of ATL is connected behind security I have connected from FL to DL and v.v.

IIRC...Airtran would let me check in online (for their flight) whether I was going DL-FL or FL-DL, but DL would only let me check in if they were the first leg

so:
DL-FL check in for both online
FL-DL check in for FL online, but in person for DL.

This is a situation where one - if this itinerary is the best option - uses expedia / travelocity / etc. to create a multi-city ticket on the various airlines (if it will price). If there's a misconnect, the "travel agent" is supposed to work on your behalf.

I indeed booked a trip like that. BER-MUC on LH metal, MUC-DXB on Emirates, and so on. My only reason to do this were *very* significant svaings on the air fare and the attached taxes (incredibly high back here).

I would not encourage pax on tight schedules to try something like that, since there are several drawbacks - apart from the one you have already mentioned - attached:

(+) baggage allowance differs greatly, in particular for the connecting flights
(+) baggage is *NOT* checked through, causing you to completely check-out plus an immediate check-in with possibile queuing (probably in another terminal building)
(+) delay issues (as you have already mentioned)
(+) frequent schedule changes (many airlines are down-sizing atm)
(+) no single point of information (schedules, tickets, seats, etc.)
(+) no signle point of contact when something goes wrong

For fairly easy itins this might work out just fine ... but you should allow for some padding on every segment. Things that can go wrong, will go wrong!

Honestly in cases like this I would recommend using orbitz etc.. so that it's all on ONE RECORD. That way if there are problems Air Tran (on the outbound) or DL (on the return) have to get you to the final destination.

Yes- I'm flying SEA-LAX on AS (and getting my full elite benefits), LAX-JFK on AA (and using a voucher for the ticket + miles + copay to get a business class upgrade). I'm not particularly worried because there's a ton of time between the flights (I did it this way to get a longer layover in LA), and if my flight went mechanical or something, AS flies a LOT of planes to LAX- there's plenty of time built into the schedule.

I also mix and match carriers on roundtrips- AS SEA to LAS, DL or WN back, VX SEA to LAX, AS back.

Good idea, unfortunately all the services I tried want to connect me either ACY-ATL (Air Tran), [I]BUT [I] then ATL-PHX-SAN on US, or through Denver on Frontier. I would rather stick with DL for the potential UG's.

Look at Expedia then or book it as a multi-city itinerary on Orbitz.

within alliances
 

When I redeem miles for award travel I often have segments on different airlines within an alliance. Sky Team works well for me. I get elite seating and special meals lifted from my home airline profile.

As this is not Delta-specific, I am moving the thread to TravelBuzz for further discussion.
Obscure2k
Delta Moderator

Keep in mind, the policy of Orbitz is that they just list flights and sell tix, and that you are acting as your own travel agent. Therefore, when things go wrong, they will not back you up; you're on your own.

I've fought them on this and lost.

This is not uncommon. I have done as many as 4 airlines in a single weekend to match up the best schedules.

WN for hops
 

I often go from east coast to west on DL, CO, or UA. But I hop around on WN. They usually have great fares between SAN/LAS/SFO/RNO etc. The RR credits build up quick too.:)

Likewise. A lot of places I go are served by different airlines.

I recently flew DUB-ZRH-ATH on swiss and then ATH-MJT on
Aegean Airways.

I have an upcoming trip on Openskies from AMS to JFK and i'm then taking Jetblue to TPA. Same on the return...

I have done it many times in the past, but avoid it now for the reasons listed previously. You could be SOL if connections don't work etc...

I almost always end up using multiple airlines for all but the simplest, North-America-only trips. Going to Cairns last month, I flew UA to SYD, but used QF for the last leg. Next week it will again be UA to/from Brazil, but TAM for internal flights. So far this has never been a problem.

Frequently. I'm up in Chicago for work right now and I flew AA up and will be returning on UA.

Sometimes I'll take US out to LAX and then take an AA redeye to the east coast.

When using FF miles I often need to use two airlines to get to where I want to go. In 2006 I used DL miles to fly CO metal FLL > EWR > ARN > TXL > EWR > FLL. However my desired destination was not ARN but rather CPH. I could only get a FF seat to ARN and a return seat from TXL. So I arrived at ARN, claimed my bag, walked over to SAS and checked-in for my ARN > CPH paid flight. When planning the trip I gave myself a 4 hour buffer at ARN. Thank goodness. I had weather issues in FLL on the outbound and and missed my connection for EWR > ARN. CO put me on a CO flight to AMS (A1 service) connecting to a KLM flight from CPH to ARN (worst FC EVER!). The four-hour buffer at ARN became only a two-hour buffer. After a few days in CPH I flew SAS from CPH to TXL.

I take different airlines on the same trip all the time for budget and routing/destination reasons and frankly, I become my own travel forecaster, trying to make my trip itinerary more complexed for fun.

Recently did VS: IAD-LHR, then 2 hr. connection time from T3 to T2
LH Italia: LHR-MXP, then 1 hr. transfer to another
LH Italia: MXP-FCO
3 days later LH: FCO-MUC, then 3 hr. transfer to
LH CityLine: MUC-AMS
2 days later BD: AMS-LHR, then 1 hr. 50 min. connection time from T1 to T3
VS: LHR-IAD
Baggage was interlined from VS to LH outbound (carriers on one ticket); bags did not interline inbound from BD to VS (carriers on one ticket but airline locator did not match, grr!)

AS has only so large of a network (expanding yes! - but still limited on the East Coast and especially midwest!) so I'm forced to add other carriers :(

So I'll have an ANC-ORD-ANC with a mix (hopefully of NW) MDW-DTW-IND IND-DTW-ORD tied in...

:cool:

Yes, especially on international award tickets that may involve open jaw or stopovers.

taking different airlines on outbound/return flights can also get you on the blacklist. once i canceled a return leg on WN because an alternative airline could get me closer to home at a more convenient time (i don't recall the airline). for the next year or so, i was blacklisted and could not check in online or through kiosks anywhere.

Assuming you are talking about the "SSSS" list from the TSA, such a beast no longer really exists, certainly not for oneway flights.