Oneworld separate ticket interline changes

[astrosly]

BA has also released their changed policy to trade sales (attached). BA won't even interline BA to BA on separate PNRs!

Nuts. I will be transiting today through LHR on two separate PNRs for BA and hope they will check baggage through. I did this 30/31 May no issues with the outbound flights, would really suck if they said no today considering I booked these flights many months ago and it was OK only a couple of weeks ago!

 

[codash1099]

Slightly OT but:

Not so long ago, AA had a policy of assisting other *O customers who misconnected. I have a QF flight to SFO in September connecting to AA on a different PNR. Connection time is 2 1/2 hours. Are AA likely to look after me if QF run late?

 

[Moindardt]

I have been talking to both CX and QF about both checking baggage through and protecting flights in the case of delays/cancellation etc (weather is covered by insurance). Both said that luggage and flights are covered if on the same PNR with multiple etickets, but we need to use a TA as they can only book their own fare rules. Is this correct?

We are about to book AA MCO-YYC, AY YYC-BKK, MH BKK-CMB, QR CMB-BNE and BNE-CMB. Does anyone know a TA who I can spoonfeed and doesn't charge cc on Amex?

 

[Flying mermaid]

Cheers, looks like I'll need to find a good TA.

Or just lots of stop overs . we have just about abandoned connections and stay overnight. Like you I haven't used a TA in many years. Given that Qantas likes you to book at Qantas.com you wonder if they will be happy if everyone reverts to TAs in order to have one PNR?

 

[wandering_fred]

I have been talking to both CX and QF about both checking baggage through and protecting flights in the case of delays/cancellation etc (weather is covered by insurance). Both said that luggage and flights are covered if on the same PNR with multiple etickets, but we need to use a TA as they can only book their own fare rules. Is this correct?
We are about to book AA MCO-YYC, AY YYC-BKK, MH BKK-CMB, QR CMB-BNE and BNE-CMB. Does anyone know a TA who I can spoonfeed and doesn't charge cc on Amex?

All depends on how much time you allow between the flight bookings. I doubt you will find a TA in CMB that doesn't add the cc percentages. Thee one I use does. I guess it's time for me to see if the CX sales offices will add flights on to the CX long hauls... Direct airline sales normally do not add percentages (outside of Australia )

Hopefully AA will continue to check through on OW connections so MCO-->BKK may still be OK with standard connections.

Happy wandering

Fred

 

[amaroo]

Going forward...

It's definitely possible to issue multiple tickets within the same PNR, but bookings made directly with an airline will not have this ability generally due to poor multi city booking engines offered on airline websites. Many multi city booking engines limit the fares offered to only fares published by that particular carrier. Most airlines also won't sell a fare published by another carrier, as fares generally have to be ticketed on the publishing carrier's ticket stock. QF can't issue a ticket for a BA fare that requires BA ticket stock for example.

If you want to issue multiple tickets within the same PNR, you'll generally need to have a travel agent do it. Most preferably, an agent that uses Amadeus given two thirds of oneworld uses Amadeus, as it'll be the same identical PNR viewable to the carriers as well as the agent.

It is NOT necessary to issue tickets for all connecting flights at the same time for them to live in the same PNR, so it's perfectly possible to buy the respective tickets during the respective sales if that's your thing. For example, the following is perfectly possible:

Itinerary: SYD QF X/BKK AY X/HEL AY LHR

SYD QF BKK - issued 31 MAR 2016
BKK AY HEL AY LHR - issued 20 APR 2016

Will this render bookings with special offers redundant? i.e. DSC where the booking had to be made within certain date range.

 

[astrosly]

Nuts. I will be transiting today through LHR on two separate PNRs for BA and hope they will check baggage through. I did this 30/31 May no issues with the outbound flights, would really suck if they said no today considering I booked these flights many months ago and it was OK only a couple of weeks ago!

Just confirming that I had no problem checking baggage through on two separate PNRs on BA just now, they already knew my ultimate destination. I think what happened when I left on my outbound was that the check in person at Rome transferred it to the one PNR as I notice both my boarding passes have the same PNR on them.

 

[defurax]

I have been talking to both CX and QF about both checking baggage through and protecting flights in the case of delays/cancellation etc (weather is covered by insurance). Both said that luggage and flights are covered if on the same PNR with multiple etickets, but we need to use a TA as they can only book their own fare rules. Is this correct?

Last year my TA had booked 3 tickets in the same PNR, one of the ticket was a BA operated flight marketed by AY connecting to a QF flight. I was no show on the QF flight due to a 4 hour delay on the BA flight. BA was not able to rebook me on QF (computer says no) and the agent kept repeating that these were separate tickets, so I was not protected anyway. To make a long story short, after multiple calls to QF and being told to pay the no show fee (which was eventually not charged) QF rebooked me on a later flight. So I'm not sure if airlines protect PAX connections if separate tickets in a single PNR. Or maybe I should have called AY? But neither QF nor BA told me that AY was responsible as marketing carrier of the first flight.

 

[amaroo]

Or just lots of stop overs . we have just about abandoned connections and stay overnight. Like you I haven't used a TA in many years. Given that Qantas likes you to book at Qantas.com you wonder if they will be happy if everyone reverts to TAs in order to have one PNR?

What a PITA this enhancement will/may cause. Stop overs x 2 rooms and extra land transfers = I'll find another way.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Just confirming that I had no problem checking baggage through on two separate PNRs on BA just now, they already knew my ultimate destination. I think what happened when I left on my outbound was that the check in person at Rome transferred it to the one PNR as I notice both my boarding passes have the same PNR on them.

It's not so much a case of transferring the other flights into the same pnr as the two sets of flights will remain in their respective pnrs in the Amadeus res system however when they added in the oncarriage manually on the outbound sector it automatically links the return flight into your checkin record so when you check in on your return the CSA would have seen both flights as though they were booked on the same ticket.

It's just like a scenario for a lot of FIFO pax where they may have to pay their own way BNE/PER/BNE and the company pays for PER/PHE/PER. When you checkin initially at BNE and the CSA links your flights in Altea it merges the flights so when you check at PHE for PER the oncarriage PER/BNE will already be there.

 

[Flying mermaid]

What a PITA this enhancement will/may cause. Stop overs x 2 rooms and extra land transfers = I'll find another way.

hard with a family.....

 

[madrooster]

I am not quite sure what published fare means technically, but why couldn't QF 'publish' a J fare to MLE. They don't have any codeshares to MLE so no reason to restrict J fares based on competition.etc.. In this instance I would be forced to book QF in J to SIN, on one ticket, and then a UL ticket in J from SIN - CMB - MLE return.
Purchasing through UL site prices everything under UL flight number, including the QF legs which I don't want.

Publishing a fare would be like Fairfax Media publishing The Age basically. No published fare would be like Fairfax not offering a newspaper in Melbourne.

You can actually issue QF codes to SIN and then UL codes for SIN-CMB-MLE on a single ticket, on UL ticket stock. Needs to be manually priced but the fare is offered. My expectation is neither the UL nor QF sites would offer it.

At least with the current QF policy of continuing to through check to OW partners, issuing multiple tickets within a PNR is not high priority (ok I'd do it for short connections at the transfer point). Though I would love to see some examples so that other TAs can be educated.

My issue is with the carriers (BA) that will not even through check between their own flights. Can you as a TA insert a LHR-ARN purchased segment into a QF award flight BA SIN-LHR? While I have had no incentive to fly BA recently, it is enough (when combined with the FF changes to provide premium earning only on the main carrier eg QF flights in QFF CX flights in MPC) to cause serious avoidance.

I have asked BA Customer Service about the impossibility of issuing combined award flights with purchased flights. I wonder if they will reply or have even considered it.

Happy wandering

Fred

What examples do you mean?

I don't believe BA is the only carrier that won't through-check on their own flights. NZ is a well known culprit of this too. I'm sure there are plenty of others.

Yes you can insert segments like LHR/ARN onto a QF award on BA SIN/LHR. It's not hard to do it but I can tell you QF themselves won't do it though. I'm not sure about BAEC though as I don't have any experience with BAEC PNRs and how they work.

Slightly OT but:

Not so long ago, AA had a policy of assisting other *O customers who misconnected. I have a QF flight to SFO in September connecting to AA on a different PNR. Connection time is 2 1/2 hours. Are AA likely to look after me if QF run late?

Yes. AA are generally very good at doing this, without even asking.

I have been talking to both CX and QF about both checking baggage through and protecting flights in the case of delays/cancellation etc (weather is covered by insurance). Both said that luggage and flights are covered if on the same PNR with multiple etickets, but we need to use a TA as they can only book their own fare rules. Is this correct?

We are about to book AA MCO-YYC, AY YYC-BKK, MH BKK-CMB, QR CMB-BNE and BNE-CMB. Does anyone know a TA who I can spoonfeed and doesn't charge cc on Amex?

Yes, CX won't sell a QF fare and QF won't sell a CX fare. It's because CX can't write QF ticket stock, and QF can't write CX ticket stock.

PM me your itinerary and I'll see if I can help you.

Will this render bookings with special offers redundant? i.e. DSC where the booking had to be made within certain date range.

It shouldn't, as the original DOI (date of issue) is what's normally used for DSC offers etc. These things are easily proven anyway as e-tickets are kept in the system for 3 months post-last-flight.

 

[astrosly]

It's not so much a case of transferring the other flights into the same pnr as the two sets of flights will remain in their respective pnrs in the Amadeus res system however when they added in the oncarriage manually on the outbound sector it automatically links the return flight into your checkin record so when you check in on your return the CSA would have seen both flights as though they were booked on the same ticket.

It's just like a scenario for a lot of FIFO pax where they may have to pay their own way BNE/PER/BNE and the company pays for PER/PHE/PER. When you checkin initially at BNE and the CSA links your flights in Altea it merges the flights so when you check at PHE for PER the oncarriage PER/BNE will already be there.

Thanks OBB for the explanation. I'm hoping this will help when I request a refund on the APD I paid to transit LHR because I couldn't book it online on one PNR and BA refused to waive a hefty service fee. Does this mean they made them a conjuction/conjoined ticket, which I understand are eligible for APD refund?

 

[madrooster]

Thanks OBB for the explanation. I'm hoping this will help when I request a refund on the APD I paid to transit LHR because I couldn't book it online on one PNR and BA refused to waive a hefty service fee. Does this mean they made them a conjuction/conjoined ticket, which I understand are eligible for APD refund?

Incorrect - that'd require the ticket to be reissued which they will not have done in a case like this. It's just a PNR linking.

 

[astrosly]

Incorrect - that'd require the ticket to be reissued which they will not have done in a case like this. It's just a PNR linking.

Thanks madrooster, but isn't that sufficient for a conjoined ticket, to just be a reference to each other? Sorry this is getting OT but I'd be interested on the differences between conjoined and linked PNRs. I was told (by BA actually) the latter was when you had to people on separate tickets but travelling the same flights - so they are "linked" to each other - but conjoined is where there are notes of an intinerary in the two PNRs that refer to each other.

 

[madrooster]

Thanks madrooster, but isn't that sufficient for a conjoined ticket, to just be a reference to each other? Sorry this is getting OT but I'd be interested on the differences between conjoined and linked PNRs. I was told (by BA actually) the latter was when you had to people on separate tickets but travelling the same flights - so they are "linked" to each other - but conjoined is where there are notes of an intinerary in the two PNRs that refer to each other.

Conjunction tickets are when there's multiple ticket numbers that are issued in consecutive order for the same itinerary. For example an itinerary of SYD-SIN-HKG-NRT-LAX-JFK-LHR-DXB-SYD is a total of 8 flights, requiring two ticket numbers (4 flight coupons per ticket number).

Say the ticket numbers are 081-4535343501-502 that means you have ticket number 081-4535343501 and 081-4535343502.

The ticket content:

081-4535343501:

1. SYD-SIN
2. SIN-HKG
3. HKG-NRT
4. NRT-LAX

081-4535343502 - this ticket references xx_x501 as the master ticket:

1. LAX-JFK
2. JFK-LHR
3. LHR-DXB
4. DXB-SYD

This is what a conjunction ticket is.

To quote from one of my earlier posts in this thread...

An issue here is that clarity is required on the terms PNR and ticket:

Ticket does not equal PNR.
A ticket lives attached to a PNR.
A ticket can become detached from a PNR (and reattached).
A PNR can have multiple tickets attached (think a tree with multiple branches/leaves).

Linking PNRs is like tying a rope from tree A to tree B and putting up a sign on that rope saying these two trees are to be kept together. That's all that linking a PNR effectively does.

 

[astrosly]

Thanks, that's a great explanation! I have four boarding passes all with the same PNR printed on them (though issued across two different ticket numbers) so I'm hoping I have a good case for a refund. If not, I'll rest easy in that the APD was cheaper than the BA service fee they wanted to charge me to put in all on one PNR anyway.

 

[Isochronous]

This is a good excuse to look at moving to Star Alliance.

What a dumb policy from oneworld.

 

[moa999]

This is a good excuse to look at moving to Star Alliance.
.

Star has never had any protections afaik

 

[Mattg]

Star has never had any protections afaik

I can't believe I'm asking this, but what about SkyTeam?