aki009

This morning a gradual degradation in the service of United Airlines reached the absolute end state that it seemed they were on their way to: I can no longer check luggage through from United to Singapore Airlines, even though both are supposedly Star Alliance partners. (It should be noted that I've never had a problem in reverse, i.e. Singapore Airlines to United.)

The same route, the same flights, over the past 5 years things went from absolutely no problem and smooth transition, to occasional hickups, to it taking a special agent to handle the matter, to a help desk needing 20 minutes to resolve it, to now being told that they don't do it.

Crappy service. Be forewarned.

UPDATE 3/17/2019:

I had the smoothest check-in experience in years. I had not seen the agent checking me in before, so I'm not sure if it's the new-guy-fresh-out-of-training benefit that I was receiving, or if UA has improved their software or something in the back end systems. Stay tuned for the April update. In April.

UPDATE 5/2/2019:
A very helpful agent explained what the issue is, and the solution after he talked to help desk. Apparently they normally add the luggage to the second flight as if it were a new reservation. However, if the flight is full it will not confirm the action and comes back "unconfirmed" (the response I've seen them chant in the past). In that case there's a magic combo (and unfortunately I did not note it) that allows them to print the luggage tags anyway.

Ocn Vw 1K

aki009, welcome to FlyerTalk! Can you give the readers of our United forum some more information about this in order to provide informed discussion: the origin city, the connecting city for the transfer, and the connecting time available would help evaluate whether this does represent a change in United policy. Thanks, Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator.

Update: see this recent thread about a single-ticket itinerary ORD->LAX (United) connecting to LAX->SIN on SQ. Apparently SQ needed to see the traveler's passport before issuing a BP in LAX. Unclear whether luggage was accepted in ORD for transfer to SIN on the SQ segment.
Conflicting Information from United with Connecting to SQ

Kacee

The published policy (bags interlined to *A partners) hasn't changed. Was there anything unusual about your itinerary?

AndyInSaigon

This is agent failure. I fly IAH-SFO-SIN connecting on SQ to SGN almost monthly (& did 2 weeks ago) Marrying the tickets is not a problem, getting the luggage tags to print is the issue. Most agents do not know what to do. I had a GS agent tell me once that she knows the system better than anyone & my luggage cannot be interlined to SQ. I have had others try to collect hundreds of dollars in baggage fees. I always got it done but no one would explain.

But luckily once I had an agent who knew exactly what to do & she gave me a quick look.

I have gotten into the habit of printing this on my SQ ticket in big red letters.

• Go into SHARES
• Select BAGGAGE
• SGN segment (or whatever your destination)
• H3 (Heavy 3, whatever you have)
• 3 (bags total or whatever you have)

Works every time.

aki009

I was told by the agent that they would no longer check luggage through, and that this had been "communicated by corporate". I was also supposed to have received a letter on topic, which I obviously had not.
Origin: Reno, connecting in SFO. 2+ hours of connecting time. Class of service: UA First (paid), SQ Business (paid). SQ Solitaire.

The point here is that I've made this same connection 5-10 times per year for many years, and only of late has it become a problem, and now a no-go. Nothing is different, except United.

As to issuing boarding passes, UA has issued them to me in the past. SQ replaces the UA issued ones with their own after a passport check. I.e. the UA BP is good for the usual airport access, but gets replaced at the gate.

The erosion of service is truly staggering. I was under the impression that the whole point of Star Alliance was to make inter-airline changes easier.

This could also be a vain attempt to motivate people to fly UA on their nonstop SFO-SIN; though SQ business beats UA first in terms of service and comfort. Besides, I am not the type to reward UA with more business if this is how they treat their customers.

Nothing has changed, except United. See my other post as to details.

chavala

Kacee

I'm 99.9% sure that AndyInSaigon has accurately answered the question. The process for interlining is very easy IF the agent knows what he/she is doing.

aki009

Hopefully helpful, but now the desk at the Reno airport claims to have approval to simply deny the interline transfer. We'll find out in a few weeks if I can talk some sense into them. I kind of doubt it.

In the meantime, I will be doing my best to let as many people as possible know about this.

It went from 0% of the time to every time over a period of a few years. The supervisor hid behind a "corporate approved" statement.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Also (in this computer-centric era), some agents think if they can't get Shares to work the problem, it can't be done. Agents can hand-write the luggage tag in less than 2 minutes if they need to (and if they are willing). I don't know how this impacts the luggage tracking system, but my luggage shows up.

Kacee

Note also that at Changi, SQ will transfer your luggage for you if you ask at the transit desk.

ttuna3

OP,

Welcome to Flyertalk!

I've never had RNO not check my bag through on separate tickets, just took the agent a lot of time with the help desk (and once a big mess up with getting my passport into back into the system after my BP was issued and the gate scanner barfed (20 minute delay working with IT again) and almost didn't get on the plane even though my bags did). Most of my connections have been to OZ in LAX or BR in IAH or SFO and rare connections at ORD to OS usually leaving RNO in the afternoon. Obviously United is back to blowing off of their alliance obligations again or their IT staff can't bothered to deal with an issue that's been around for a very long time or non airport management doesn't want to actually make UA the Friendly Skies.

I'm always happy to work with the RNO crew especially when they know the issue is coming from higher up the food chain.

milepig

It can be done, but is a certain amount of work, although UA to SQ on a single ticket should be like interlining 101. On the other hand, I've recently (after the last round of tightening) had UA interline our bags ORD-LHR on UA and then LHR-KEF on Icelandic on two tickets (don't ask!). But it took a long time and much clicking. As far as I can tell, the agent forced the LHR-KEF segment onto my UA itin and then printed out the tags. I say this since when I later checked my UA reservation online the LHR-KEF segment was showing there. I was planning to need to retrieve and recheck bags at LHR and was very pleasantly surprised. I was concerned enough that I checked at the Icelanding transfer desk at LHR - showing them the stubs and they said "you're good to go" and also seemed a bit surprised. I don't think the agent was supposed to do this, so lower your expectations.

In the past, when anyone traveling in INTL F (rip) had access to the GS checkin area at ORD I found those agents to be willing to go the extra mile and to do all sorts of rule bending.

jsloan

There is no "alliance obligation" to interline bags across separate tickets. And there's nothing wrong with the IT, although I suppose they could add this functionality to Aero and haven't chosen to do so. It takes _maybe_ two minutes for a properly-trained and/or experienced agent to do this.

Kacee

It's quite easy, even across separate tix, if the agent knows what he/she is doing. A minute or two, as jsloan noted. Also, there's little chance this is a single ticket. Neither airline would sell RNO-SFO (UA), SFO-SIN (SQ)

This sounds like a classic MOLA situation at multiple levels.

Mwenenzi

Separate tickets or all in 1 ticket/PNR?

UA Bag Interlining If Separate Tix with *A Partners (YES) & Non *A Partners (NO)