QF-QR baggage interline agreement on two PNRs

[Quickstatus]

But in that scenario QF

Yes I had thought that maybe that was the case.
However I have previously had bags tagged QF to AA at LAX.

Getting the bag tagged by AA

In that case, it was a no go as well and I had to go to T4 to checkin

 

[SYD]

Yeah, AA are a bit stingy…. Similar issue PVR-DFW-LAX then QF. We tried again at DFW (had to collect anyway) and had success….

 

[madrooster]

Yes I had thought that maybe that was the case.
However I have previously had bags tagged QF to AA at LAX.

In that case, it was a no go as well and I had to go to T4 to checkin

Yeah, AA are a bit stingy…. Similar issue PVR-DFW-LAX then QF. We tried again at DFW (had to collect anyway) and had success….

With AA they generally will only do it if it's on one PNR particularly as Sabre doesn't push the baggage data over to QF correctly the majority of the time when it's done across two separate PNRs and that often creates issues.

If you have a relationship with a good travel agent they might be willing to do QF award/AA commercial on one PNR to avoid the problem altogether.

 

[Quickstatus]

When you look at the bags on the carousel at LAX coming off a QF flight, many have tags that include onward destinations

 

[SYD]

When you look at the bags on the carousel at LAX coming off a QF flight, many have tags that include onward destinations

That’s normal. Anyone with onward connections on one PNR will be “checked through”.

 

[Quickstatus]

That’s normal.

Yes know.
My point is that LAX “get bags and take to transfer carousel” is not the reason airlines don’t tag bags through. QF policy at the time said it would tag through Reward flights to AA revenue flights even though it’s not on a single PNR.

 

[SYD]

Yes know.
My point is that LAX “get bags and take to transfer carousel” is not the reason airlines don’t tag bags through. QF policy at the time said it would tag through Reward flights to AA revenue flights even though it’s not on a single PNR.

…and still says that. Annoying when they don’t. Fortunately, I’ve not had a problem with QF ex-SYD but AA in most places, yes.

It beggars belief why OW removed that benefit or at least doesn’t offer it at least to status PAX. QR bucked the move when the rules changed.

 

[jpp42]

What is the actual business reason not to allow the bags to be tagged through? Does one of the airlines get charged a fee by the airport if the bags have to be held in a baggage hold room for a period of time? It seems there must be an actual cost involved here, not just a matter of printing out the tags (given we know the IT systems already should allow this to work).

 

[SYD]

What is the actual business reason not to allow the bags to be tagged through? Does one of the airlines get charged a fee by the airport if the bags have to be held in a baggage hold room for a period of time? It seems there must be an actual cost involved here, not just a matter of printing out the tags (given we know the IT systems already should allow this to work).

Someone in the industry can probably better explain but there was an IATA rule change which from memory OW decided to stop through checking as policy.

Did Oneworld just make your next trip more of a nightmare?

In a move which could cause connection chaos for many travellers, airlines belonging to the Oneworld alliance – among them Qantas, British Airways and Cathay Pacific – are no longer required to check passengers and their baggage through to their final destination on some connecting flights. The...

www.executivetraveller.com

Oneworld airlines revise baggage policy for connecting flights

Many airlines belonging to the Oneworld alliance will no longer transfer checked luggage onto connecting flights if that onwards flight has been made under a seperate booking. The changed rules – which in several cases are not being clearly communicated to passengers – are bound to cause...

www.executivetraveller.com

But QR bucked the trend….

Qatar Airways ditches Oneworld's restrictive baggage rules

EXCLUSIVE | Qatar Airways is taking a welcome step back from the Oneworld alliance's traveller-unfriendly baggage rules for connecting flights. From March 1, the Gulf airline will once again allow passengers to have checked baggage sent ahead from any Qatar Airways flight to any connecting...

www.executivetraveller.com

 

[jpp42]

The Oneworld rule change would only have come about as a result of pressure from the members. Thanks for linking the articles, it seems like the issue may partly be to trying to save time/resources at check-in, i.e. they won't have to train the check-in agents on how to do this, and they won't have to enhance the programming at self-check kiosks to allow such routing. I suppose the issue with disrupted itineraries also costs time/money for the airlines, i.e. if your second flight has already left when the bag arrives at the connecting airport, the baggage room doesn't know what to do with it and they have to expend resources to contact you and process the bag manually. This might also incur costs for the second airline if they have to end up delivering your bag to the final destination after the passenger arrives? Overall I'm sure there are significant costs being saved somewhere or they wouldn't have done this.

 

[oz_mark]

The issue with through-checking baggage on separate tickets is around what happens during a misconnect. After the Iceland Volcano time, the airlines reviewed the situation of mishandled baggage, and how they were becoming responsible for dealing with situations on flights they didn't really know about.

Basically, by being on a single booking, the airlines are better able to handle IRROPS, mostly because they actually know what flights you are booked on.

 

[Hbbar]

I've been doing some research into the Qantas Exemption:

“^ Exemptions apply for customers travelling on a oneworld separate PNRs when using a combination of award travel and revenue travel. Note: This is a Qantas exemption and may not be supported by all oneworld airlines.”

I noticed here, and in a couple of other posts, there seems to be comments that they've had QF not follow this. I've queried this on the phone and at the airport, and each time the person seemed to not know of the rule but once shown said yes you'll be fine. I'm concerned about rocking up on the day and getting someone checking me in who won't allow it.

I'm looking at QF Award ADL-SYD-LAX, to link with an AA revenue LAX onward.

Any tips or experience to make sure this isn't an issue?

Also just curious if it matters whether the AA revenue is booked directly with AA or can it be via a Travel Agent/AMEX Travel ?

 

[ChrisFlyer]

To answer a few of the Qs above, I recently flew MEL-SYD-DFW-ORD on QF+AA. Qantas reward ticket MEL-SYD-DFW, AA revenue fare on the domestic leg, booked directly with AA.

MEL domestic check-in (International flights counter) didn't want to do it. Well, they tried and couldn't find the connection (of course they wouldn't, as AA wasn't booked via QF). Had to ask for a supervisor, who still said no. Showed him the Qantas policy on the Qantas website, he had to call his own boss, who then okayed it, and they had to key in a 'manual' connection. Took about 45 minutes, mostly because of them not wanting to do it, and the supervisor seemed to have to put in some override code and comments to allow the computer to do it, but we got there in the end.

He explained that Qantas doesn't like doing it as it costs them more money but "we don't get any revenue" from the AA sector (which isn't entirely true, QFF gets some accrual revenue from the points, but yes, it's not a Qantas marketed fare). He also said that if the Qantas flight got in late and I misconnected, me being checked through meant that Qantas would be liable for a hotel in DFW and a new AA connecting flight.

Funnily enough, I had 2 checked bags. Both made it to DFW, but only one made it to ORD initially (both were tagged correctly). When that happens, AA lets you go shopping for whatever you need and claim every cent back. The fact that I was an international passenger and had come from Australia meant AA was (more easily) able to reimburse me via an Australian local bank transfer from their Sydney office (in AUD, based on my equivalent USD charges). Had I only been a 'US domestic' passenger to them, from the sounds of things, reimbursement would have been via a USD bank cheque ('check'), which would be hard or pricey to cash in Australia.

Having the bag tagged through also meant I could just drop it off and go straight through security and to the Flagship Lounge, rather than lining up to check-in again.

How great would it be though if Qantas allowed you to mix Qantas Points bookings to the US with revenue QF codeshare flights on AA for onward connections? I'd have gladly paid a little more than what it cost via AA to have everything on the one ticket and not to have to deal with the back and forward at the airport.

 

[Hbbar]

To answer a few of the Qs above, I recently flew MEL-SYD-DFW-ORD on QF+AA. Qantas reward ticket MEL-SYD-DFW, AA revenue fare on the domestic leg, booked directly with AA.

MEL domestic check-in (International flights counter) didn't want to do it. Well, they tried and couldn't find the connection (of course they wouldn't, as AA wasn't booked via QF). Had to ask for a supervisor, who still said no. Showed him the Qantas policy on the Qantas website, he had to call his own boss, who then okayed it, and they had to key in a 'manual' connection. Took about 45 minutes, mostly because of them not wanting to do it, and the supervisor seemed to have to put in some override code and comments to allow the computer to do it, but we got there in the end.

He explained that Qantas doesn't like doing it as it costs them more money but "we don't get any revenue" from the AA sector (which isn't entirely true, QFF gets some accrual revenue from the points, but yes, it's not a Qantas marketed fare). He also said that if the Qantas flight got in late and I misconnected, me being checked through meant that Qantas would be liable for a hotel in DFW and a new AA connecting flight.

Funnily enough, I had 2 checked bags. Both made it to DFW, but only one made it to ORD initially (both were tagged correctly). When that happens, AA lets you go shopping for whatever you need and claim every cent back. The fact that I was an international passenger and had come from Australia meant AA was (more easily) able to reimburse me via an Australian local bank transfer from their Sydney office (in AUD, based on my equivalent USD charges). Had I only been a 'US domestic' passenger to them, from the sounds of things, reimbursement would have been via a USD bank cheque ('check'), which would be hard or pricey to cash in Australia.

Having the bag tagged through also meant I could just drop it off and go straight through security and to the Flagship Lounge, rather than lining up to check-in again.

How great would it be though if Qantas allowed you to mix Qantas Points bookings to the US with revenue QF codeshare flights on AA for onward connections? I'd have gladly paid a little more than what it cost via AA to have everything on the one ticket and not to have to deal with the back and forward at the airport.

Thanks for the detailed info! That's very close to my scenario (hopefully without the lost bags, although 2 out of 3 times lately we have had bags lost by AA)

It's good to know it went through in the end, I can't wait to have that argument though early one morning. And this is exactly why I'm asking. Doesn't seem like it should be this hard.

For your info too, one of the above bag losses, we lodged a claim with AA from Aus, and we were asked for a AUS bank account to pay it to. Maybe it ended up in their Sydney office based on the website I raised the claim from perhaps.

Do we believe Direct with AA would make any difference to non direct. Maybe its not worth the concern of a potential additional issue.

 

[pyffii]

We're off in May on a QF award ticket MEL-HND and connecting onto our DONE4 with the first leg HND-LHR-BCN amd as a WP hoping we dont have an "issue" on check in....Thanks for the updates

 

[Hampton Mike]

In June I’m MEL-SIN on a QF award booking. Then SIN-MXP on a paid ticket. I’m going to check in person with MEL checkin prior to that and see what they say.

A complication in my case is that, in order to minimise the chance of a missed connection, I’ve allowed a minimum of 24 hours in SIN (actually 27 hours in this case).

 

[jpp42]

A complication in my case is that, in order to minimise the chance of a missed connection, I’ve allowed a minimum of 24 hours in SIN (actually 27 hours in this case).

Even if that were on the same PNR, it would be considered a stopover and not a connection, so your baggage would not be checked through. This is a pretty hard limit with most airlines. They have to have a cutoff somewhere, as baggage storage in airports is not infinite (and they have no mechanism to charge you for storage for multiple days). However, there is a "left luggage" service where you can store the bags yourself at Singapore airport, if that suits.

 

[Hampton Mike]

Ok, thx. Maybe I’ll just plan for that instead

 

[Hampton Mike]

Ok, so now for an update. I’m currently at SIN (almost 9:30am). I arrived last night on QF35, and on a separate PNR I’m departing tonight on QR to MXP.

In Melbourne QANTAS said they were unable to interline the baggage and I’d need to collect it in SIN and recheck it.

When I arrived last night (and sleeping airside at the transit hotel, and obviously unable to get my baggage) the transfer desk said just get it the next day from Lost and Found and then go landslide and check it in. But that obviously as I couldn’t check it in till 3 or 4 hours before the QR flight I’d have to put it in paid luggage storage during the day.

On a whim, I went to the transfer desk airside again this morning to see if I could get my boarding pass even though my QR flight is in 12 hours time. Not only did I get my boarding pass but she asked for my QANTAS luggage receipt from the inward flight. She then typed away and said that’ll all now be sent through to MXP. Now I don’t need to interact with my luggage at all. Hopefully!!

And now I can happily explore JEWEL this morning and crawl around SIN lounges this afternoon

 

[eminere]

Ok, so now for an update. I’m currently at SIN (almost 9:30am). I arrived last night on QF35, and on a separate PNR I’m departing tonight on QR to MXP.

In Melbourne QANTAS said they were unable to interline the baggage and I’d need to collect it in SIN and recheck it.

When I arrived last night (and sleeping airside at the transit hotel, and obviously unable to get my baggage) the transfer desk said just get it the next day from Lost and Found and then go landslide and check it in. But that obviously as I couldn’t check it in till 3 or 4 hours before the QR flight I’d have to put it in paid luggage storage during the day.

On a whim, I went to the transfer desk airside again this morning to see if I could get my boarding pass even though my QR flight is in 12 hours time. Not only did I get my boarding pass but she asked for my QANTAS luggage receipt from the inward flight. She then typed away and said that’ll all now be sent through to MXP. Now I don’t need to interact with my luggage at all. Hopefully!!

And now I can happily explore JEWEL this morning and crawl around SIN lounges this afternoon

SIN is such a good airport!