RSSRNotInIndia

Reminds me of those calls I take in which passengers complain 'yes, I'm traveling on two separate tickets, but UA has an interline agreement with BA and its flight was late so you MUST protect me.' Wrong. For liability reasons, agents are discouraged (although it's obviously rarely enforced) from doing this. Should something happen, UA doesn't want to squabble with CO or have CO 'return the favor' in the future.

That doesn't me all agents follow the rules. But some do.

channa

The point is so you could build interline tickets (e.g., IAD-UA-SEA-CO-ANC), not buy two tickets and fly them together (e.g., IAD-UA-SEA; SEA-CO-ANC). I'm not sure why the OP didn't build it all on one ticket in the first place -- then he'd be guaranteed not only his bag, but protection to his final destination.

iwillflytheworld

There are two entirely different issues.

One is the passenger - if traveling on two different tickets, if the first flight is late causing a misconnection, the second carrier has no obligation towards the passenger. Actually, even if the two tickets are on the same airline, the passenger has no rights if she loses the second flight due to the first being delayed (of course, if it's on the same airline chances are they would be accommodated out of goodwill).

The second issue, and the only one we have been discussing in this thread, is baggage. Many carriers do allow checking baggage through to a different ticket provided an interline agreement exists; as of today, United appears to be in this category. I'm not sure about the details of liability in case the luggage is delayed or lost, but for sure this is clearly spelled out in the interlining agreements or broader regulations.

notquiteaff

While I try to avoid checking luggage whenever possible, I have had UA both at the beginning and the end of a multi-carrier multi-ticket trip. No problems.

The most "exciting" situation was on Koh Samui (too lazy to look up airport code; flying to SIN on Bangkok Airways) where I asked the TA if she could check my bags through to SFO for my UA SIN-HKG-SFO flight the next day. She consulted a manual, and after 10 minutes of typing printed out the tags, which looked fine to me. Only when leaving the checkin counter did I noticed the "Trainee" button on her uniform But it all went well, with the luggage overnighting somewhere in the bowels of SIN until the early morning departure on UA.

RSSRNotInIndia

iwillflytheworld,

The answer is NO. This question is asked very frequently... the profile is clear, the briefings are clear -- if a passenger is traveling on multiple tickets, UA will NOT transfer his/her bags between tickets. But as evidenced in this thread... many agents don't follow this policy and obviously UA isn't too aggressive in enforcing it. That does not mean, however, that there aren't any agents who DO follow policy. And I want people who use this thread for reference to be aware of that.

notquiteaff

If UA doesn't want that to happen, why doesn't the agent's computer system simply prohibit it?

RSSRNotInIndia

Easier said than done. We're talking about Apollo (!), with its vintage DOS-like commands : ).

jiburi

I have UA Domestic ticket and have a separate international ticket on BA. Is it correct to assume that I have to pay the $15 first baggage fee as UA isn't my international carrier?! Will I have to reclaim the bag in IAD and recheck the bag on my way to LHR on BA? On these cases, I'm assuming the baggage rules is based on the first carrier.....

Jiburi

notquiteaff

You list yourself as a UA Premier... in which case I think you'd be exempt from the $15 baggage fee.

http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,52481,00.html

jiburi

It was on a Free Ticket Voucher booked when I am UA Premier but will drop from the ranking next year. I wonder if there is different terms for Free Ticket Vouchers.......

Jiburi

treyrox

Wirelessly posted (xx: BlackBerry8100/4.5.0.55 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100 UP.Browser/5.0.3.3)

I've never had a problem checking bags through on multiple tickets and multiple airlines. Presently have bags checked UA>UA>LH>AY(Finnair) not a moment of hesitation at checkin and has never been a problem before

DHAST

My guess is that some policies change like the wind, and having to recode a CRS to enforce them every time they change is just asking for trouble.

When I worked on the ramp at UAX, I never could keep up with the pets policy. It seemed to always be "no pets", "no pets during the summer", "only for military" or whatever. I could never keep it straight.

notquiteaff

More trouble than asking X thousand employees to be aware of changing policies and actually follow them?

I obviously have never seen or worked on the system that UA is using to check luggage/print boarding passes, and I assume it's horrid 1960's technology. Still, changing it to not allow a bag to be checked to anywhere *not* on the itinerary the passenger is checking in for doesn't seem like rocket science.

There you go. When you want rules to be followed, you enforce them with your system, not by sending memos to people. Of course, it involves a bit of investment into your IT system, but it would seem worth it for a company that's planning to be in business for a while. Oh wait... never mind.

snic

That would be USM.

I had two "exciting" situatiuons where I tried to check bags from UA through to connecting carriers in Europe, where the connecting flights were on different itineraries. Both times, the agent happily checked the bags all the way through. Both times, the bags did not make it onto my connecting flight. In one case, my bag did not make it for several days, by which time I was already back home in the USA.

My advice: don't do it, if you need your bags in a timely fashion. I had actually planned to carry my bag on the plane with me for one of these trips, but then the infamous liquid (non-)bombers struck, and everyone was limited to something like a newspaper, a book and a coat for carry-on .

DHAST

You never know

I'm curious how these design sessions work in the IT department. I have an undergraduate degree in computer science, but it's not what I do (or want to do) for a living. I have to wonder if these things were written with a lot of flexibility in mind, so that the option, if necessary, was available.

I have two side thoughts on the baggage tag issue:

1. In Apollo, IIRC, tags can be manually generated outside of a reservation. I once saw an ABT (computer generated) tag that originated in Helsinki, took a Fin Air flight to JFK, but the flight from JFK was written "DFW" but given an IAD flight number. I asked the customer service manager how that could happen, and it's simply because the tags are manually generated.

2. The originating airline could care less about baggage screw-ups on off-line connections. At my carrier, off-line bags were given lowest priority, for the reasons already mentioned. (If we're not going to take the hit, why put that work ahead of our own?)

Considering that the IT guys likely never worked the front lines of aviation, I have to wonder if expecting *them* to get it right is a bit of an undertaking. Some of the nuances of these systems have to be so particular that being able to test for all of the combinations and what not have to be so time consuming that perhaps IT has decided it's not worth it.