Oneworld separate ticket interline changes

[Himeno]

The AA desk in SYD might have been able to rebook you though.

They would have. AA has a policy separate from the through check interline to protect across tickets from oneworld partners.
They rechecked me across tickets (both revenue) a few years ago.
I was in Tokyo starting a DONE3 in 2013 when Typhoon Wipha passed through. On the way to HND, the wind picked up and the trains stopped. I had HND-HKG-JFK booked on CX and a separate JFK-BOS on AA.
I found other people on the train who were also heading to the same HND-HKG flight and after contacting CX and seeing that the line for taxis was too long, we found a local bus to the airport.
Of course, we got to the CX counter after check in for the morning flight had closed and the staff were packing up. Got rebooked, then I went over to the AA desk (who were still running HND-JFK). The AA flight was delayed due to the typhoon, so they were still checking people in. After explaining the issue to them (that no, I wasn't on the AA flight, I was on CX, but had a connecting AA flight that I would now miss) they rebooked me without issue.
I had booked an 9 hour overnight connection. With the 6 hour delay in HND and then going through YVR on CX888, I would now be arriving at JFK T7 when the original BOS flight would be departing T8.

 

[serfty]

The main issue with YUPPs is the potential for a downgrade in the event of delays. But you do have the choice to wait until the next flight with Y/F available. The Y class bit of the YUPP should also give you fairly high standby priority? A full Y on standby used to trump even top tier elites on standby lists. Not sure if they’ve changed that now.

Disrupted 'First' still trumps most standby.

The beauty of the "PTY runs" are that they are generally Business class fares outright (I prefix fare code) and not YUPPs so full protection available in business cabin.

 

[SYD]

That’s what peev’d me the most. This fare was ‘I’ Biz through to SJU. But transfer Dragon was thinking traditional YUPP....

Yes, we were top of Upgrade list (standby J PAX v upgrade wannabes - but no joy if the plane checks in full).

The meagar refund for forced downgrade rubbed salt in the wounds.

No flights have actually posted for me, but I will be claiming original fare/class booked...

 

[madrooster]

Anyway, QF11 never made up any time and QF did f’all to rebook us. A friend on the flight with paid tix was moved to a later LAX-MIA flight. All we got was a ‘Priority Pass’ to an otherwise quick immigration but very slow baggage collection....

QF can't access an AA reservation that is held in Sabre, so no they can't rebook you when it's on separate PNRs. Furthermore, AA would only have seen on a limited basis that you were coming in on QF. The only thing AA would see is the fact you have 0081 (QF) issued bag tag numbers.

It's best to have the commercial AA ticket ticketed in the same PNR as the QF award. That way QF has full visibility of the AA on-carriage and AA can also see you are inbound on QF.

The award to paid flight separate tickets? I wouldn’t expect QF to rebook on that. Thankfully AA will protect separate tickets for one world connections, but not automatically. The AA desk in SYD might have been able to rebook you though.

I have seen QF rebook missed connections when everything is on the same PNR despite separate tickets, but it's hit and miss.

 

[SYD]

It's best to have the commercial AA ticket ticketed in the same PNR as the QF award. That way QF has full visibility of the AA on-carriage and AA can also see you are inbound on QF.

How does one go about doing whilst leveraging cheap AA sale fares?

QF won’t link/add a seperate AA revenue PNR to an existing award booking - tried that and failed several times.

They will add additional award sectors (for a fee).

Will they sell AA sectors as an add on to an award tix? But I guess you get their price not AA cheap fares - offset by possible QF codes. Which is now better in many cases. eg LAX-MIA (which is why I booked LAX-DFW-MIA-SJU.

As a TA, are you able to pick up that QF award booking and add other paid sectors?

 

[madrooster]

How does one go about doing whilst leveraging cheap AA sale fares?

QF won’t link/add a seperate AA revenue PNR to an existing award booking - tried that and failed several times.

They will add additional award sectors (for a fee).

Will they sell AA sectors as an add on to an award tix? But I guess you get their price not AA cheap fares - offset by possible QF codes. Which is now better in many cases. eg LAX-MIA (which is why I booked LAX-DFW-MIA-SJU.

As a TA, are you able to pick up that QF award booking and add other paid sectors?

If you get in contact with me I'll provide you with further information. It's not something I'm willing to divulge publicly.

 

[serfty]

So it was not a YUPP fare then ...

Connecting to AA F/J LAX-DFW-MIA-SJU ($350 YUPP).

How much was the refund offerred?

Receipts and refunds − Contact American − American Airlines

 

[SYD]

So it was not a YUPP fare then ...

How much was the refund offerred?

Receipts and refunds − Contact American − American Airlines

I guess not - just using old terminology. Do YUPPs technically exist anymore?

For me, refund was US$98.98 for downgrade on LAX-MIA. Only US$16 more for partner who got dudded on MIA-SJU as well.

 

[SYD]

If you get in contact with me I'll provide you with further information. It's not something I'm willing to divulge publicly.

So not so straight forward. But I’ll keep that in mind next time! Thanks

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I guess not - just using old terminology. Do YUPPs technically exist anymore?

For me, refund was US$98.98 for downgrade on LAX-MIA. Only US$16 more for partner who got dudded on MIA-SJU as well.

I found this fare basis for a ticket later this year on AA: VVAHZNI3 - heavily discounted F with no refund etc etc. Books into 'I' class. Fare rules state it is an instant upgrade at time of purchase, and any voluntary changes require economy class inventory to be available before the instant upgrade can be applied.

 

[madrooster]

So not so straight forward. But I’ll keep that in mind next time! Thanks

There's also a number of gotchas to be aware of too. Definitely not straight forward simple, but I've done it numerous times.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

The main issue with YUPPs is the potential for a downgrade in the event of delays. But you do have the choice to wait until the next flight with Y/F available. The Y class bit of the YUPP should also give you fairly high standby priority? A full Y on standby used to trump even top tier elites on standby lists. Not sure if they’ve changed that now.

I've found AA pretty good with automatically rebooking into F in the case of a missed connection. One time we were flying SJU/xMIA/xJFK/BOS and the a/c did a return to blox then needed to call in an engineer. I knew we would miss our JFK/BOS flight however when I logged on to AA.com using the free wifi on descent into JFK I could see we'd already been rebooked on to the next flight, in F, with seats together.

That same trip a couple of days later BOS/xMIA/SJU de-icing the a/c plus another return to blox saw us arrivng in MIA late and we arrived at the gate to watch the a/c pushing back from the gate. The gate agent rebooked us then and there for a flight a couple of hours later and gave us meal vouchers. He did also offer us the option of standing by for the next flight but we didn't worry about that.

I guess one of the reason they're 'pro-active' about rebooking you is a lenghy upgrade list on your current flight so they're eager to take your seats hence transferring you to a later one. I've found that the AA app is more reliable for displaying new flights so always load your AA pnr into the app.

We were flying LIR/xMIA/xORD/LAX but had a 5 hour delay and while tried to retrieve the pnr on AA.com said "your booking has changed contact AA reservations" yet the app displayed new flights LIR/xMIA/xIAH/LAX but we missed that as by the time we cleared customs we arrived at the bag drop when the flight was closed so we were rebooked again MIA/CLT in whY then CLT/LAX in F.

Next day we were due to travel LAX/xDFW/xMIA/LIR again but had only arrived at the Customs Hotel at 0100 due the 5 hour delay and had to be up at 0400 for a 0600 flight. Yes the alarm went off but putting your head back on the pillow for "just 5 minutes" is never a good idea so waking up again at 0507 was not going to end well. Arrived at T4 F checkin at about 0540 who rebooked us in whY LAX/DFW on the 0700 then another DFW/MIA that would still connect with our original MIA/LIR. AA allow same day changes for OWE pax but must be same routing.

I glanced at the tv screen at our gate for the DFW/MIA flight which had a ridiculous amount of pax on the upgrade list and thought we'd be bottom on the heap however when we went to board got the magic beep so ended up in F.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

AA (and most US airlines) are very good at proactively rebooking. But in this case the OP was on separate tickets. AA’s policy to protect OW connections is great, but with separate tickets they’re not going to protect you automatically... most of the time they may not even know you’re coming.

instant upgrade fares can be changed, prior to departure, so the OP may have had some luck with the ticketing counter in SYD. But as the flight wasn’t necessarily going to misconnect, there may have been limited opportunity to change flights if the underlying fare wasn’t available.

Once IRROPS is invoked, most US airlines work wonders... any seat, any flight.

 

[Himeno]

Once IRROPS is invoked, most US airlines work wonders... any seat, any flight.

Yep. Booked US CAE-PHL-LGA. Flights north and west all delayed. Was already poking around in EF and looking at options, already knowing my connection would have issues, when the airline asked for people with connections to come talk to them.
The agent just looked at other options on the same route, which would have meant an overnight (with US paying for a hotel), when I suggested what I found on EF. Next CAE-CLT and connect to JFK.
A few key strokes later and it was all done.

 

[Mrmaxwell]

A query; I booked SYD-HKG with QF (paid) and then due to itinerary changes an additional tag on HKG-MNL-HKG via CX using points (seperate PNR)

My understanding is I should be ok to check through my luggage in both SYD and return in MNL?

Do I need to get these PNRs paired?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

A query; I booked SYD-HKG with QF (paid) and then due to itinerary changes an additional tag on HKG-MNL-HKG via CX using points (seperate PNR)

My understanding is I should be ok to check through my luggage in both SYD and return in MNL?

Do I need to get these PNRs paired?

You can either get the two bookings linked (doesn't achieve much) or just present the onward ticket at check-in in SYD. Will save you the call the QF.

 

[Mrmaxwell]

You can either get the two bookings linked (doesn't achieve much) or just present the onward ticket at check-in in SYD. Will save you the call the QF.

Thought so. Three calls to QF yielded two 'can't be done' and one 'sure no issue as paid+points tickets can't be booked via QF site'

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thought so. Three calls to QF yielded two 'can't be done' and one 'sure no issue as paid+points tickets can't be booked via QF site'

'Linking' PNRs, as far as I understand, does little except put a note in each booking saying the other exists. It's only visible if an agent reads through the notes to find it (ie there is no 'flag' making the existence of the other booking prominent). As such you may still need to point out the existence of the other booking at check-in in SYD, even though they have been linked.

So it doesn't really achieve much... except for having the other flight details available at the time of check-in. That can be achieved just by showing the other ticket. There's no protection granted for a missed connection for example.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

'Linking' PNRs, as far as I understand, does little except put a note in each booking saying the other exists. It's only visible if an agent reads through the notes to find it (ie there is no 'flag' making the existence of the other booking prominent). As such you may still need to point out the existence of the other booking at check-in in SYD, even though they have been linked.

So it doesn't really achieve much... except for having the other flight details available at the time of check-in. That can be achieved just by showing the other ticket. There's no protection granted for a missed connection for example.

Notes in bookings are about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike. Nobody reads notes in bookings because CSAs at airports 99% of the time have no reason to look in a reservations pnr because all the info they need to check someone in is in the checkin system. It may only be of some use to a CSR if they happen to be speaking to the pax about their booking. Sometimes CSRs can enter comments that will be seen in the checkin system using the CKIN SSR however there is no guarantee the comments will be read as they're easily missed and the checkin process can be completed without reading them.

You cannot link different airlines pnrs - people may be getting confused with one passenger linking themselves to another passenger in a separate booking. Some pax may call up airline A to advise them of airline B's flight and it's entered in as an information or ghost segment however this information does not generate any messages anywhere nor can it be seen by checkin staff as an oncarriage flight.

In the event of delay management when airlines rebook new flights for pax who misconnect, notes in bookings are useless as airlines go off the oncarriage details in the checkin system not what's in a res pnr. The only oncarriage flights that are visible are ones that were in the same booking to start with or were added in at checkin for the purpose of the through check off luggage and issue of boarding passes.

 

[Mrmaxwell]

The only oncarriage flights that are visible are ones that were in the same booking to start with or were added in at checkin for the purpose of the through check off luggage and issue of boarding passes.

So should I assume my CX oncarriage flight will be added at checkin by QF to my booking? And vice versa by CX upon my return from MNL? I always assume the bag tags are most important...didn't realise anything was added/adjusted to the actual booking.