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#15517 by stoneman
08 Oct 2006, 16:27
I was going through our travel itinerary this morning for our trip on Tuesday. I remember someone mentiong before that you need about 2 hours when landing in SF to get the connection to LAS, so I made sure of that, what I hadn't checked was the other way around!!! We set off from LAS to SF but there was only an hour to spare before the VS flight to LHR took off[:0] So a rushed call to Upper reservations this morning to get an earlier flight from LAS. The question is, what would have VS had to do because they planned the flights for us. We would have missed the onward flight definately, so the ball would have been in their court, right? As well as supplying an overnight stay in SF for us, and meals, drinks etc. would they have also had to upgrade us to a higher class because of the inconvience? Has anyone else come accross this before, should I have just played dumb and let them give us upgrades etc. ?
#142385 by preiffer
08 Oct 2006, 16:45
First, it's POSSIBLE to make a domestic > International at SFO in under an hour - I've done it a couple times.

They would not have had to upgrade you. Maybe put you on a different carrier, in the same class - or offer an overnight, etc. and a seat on the next day's flight.
#142391 by mysteryflyer
08 Oct 2006, 18:41
I think you would have made it too. You were ticketed on a short connection so your luggage should have been labelled and *should* have gone directly to the VS flight.

I would have liked to have the extra time for the clubhouse but its landside at SFO so this would add some delay.

Overall you would have been OK, but 2 hours is better. and 3 hours for the full clubhouse experience
#142417 by p17blo
08 Oct 2006, 22:49
Let me tell you that dispute an airline's own representatives selling you the flight, if you miss that flight by late arrival of your connection they WILL treat you like a 2nd class citizen. It has happened to me three times. The first time was AA and I simply could not believe they left me stranded at JFK after THEIR late arrival of my incoming flight - My luggage made it to LHR but I didn't. They put me in a hotel overnight - I had no money, no luggage (so no clean clothes or toiletries). Hotel was susposed to put on food which they did not and supply toiletries which were the standard stuff you would get in any hotel room. So when similar things happened with other airline on 2 further occasion I made a concerted effort to pay whatever it take NOT to connect or other than that ensure that I allow for a connection the following day.

Paul
#142428 by mysteryflyer
08 Oct 2006, 23:54
I quite often find my company doesnt book through tickets due to price. So for example I am bmi from London then LH to somewhere else. Separately its cheap, but if they try to book them all through its expensive. Even though its the so called Star Alliance. I hate it when they do this as my bags dont get through checked and presumably if I miss it im stuck with no hotel. company pays if this happens but it still seems like bonkers behaviour to me....
#142432 by webdes03
09 Oct 2006, 07:15
Disclaimer: I realize that some of you are frequent flyers and probably know this, but I'll post it for people that don't know.

EDIT: A note to the mods... when I was posting this, I got to thinking, would it be worth adding a "travel tips" section for people to share travel tips for travel in general or through specific cities? Would anyone find that useful?

Originally posted by mysteryflyer
I quite often find my company doesnt book through tickets due to price. So for example I am bmi from London then LH to somewhere else. Separately its cheap, but if they try to book them all through its expensive. Even though its the so called Star Alliance. I hate it when they do this as my bags dont get through checked and presumably if I miss it im stuck with no hotel. company pays if this happens but it still seems like bonkers behaviour to me....


I see this quite a bit, however I will offer those unfamiliar with the problem a tad of advice. If you want your bags to be checked... normally they will do this manually for you as long as the connecting airline has a baggage agreement with the originating airline (which they will if you're connecting to another STAR airline). In fact, most major carriers have baggage agreements with other majors even if they're not in the same alliance. For example, we through-check with VS, BA, LH, AZ and many more that are not SkyTeam.

The Delta policy on it is that as long as you have proof of your onward travel, ie: printed company/airline itn, we can manually enter your connecting flight numbers and cities into the computer and check your bag through manually, even if the flights don't show in your record.

The only trick is that when you get to the transfer city, you want to let the next airline know that you've checked X number of bags with XX carrier and here arevyour tag numbers, so they can make sure they are in the next computer system.

That said, sometimes if you're at risk of missing a flight sometimes it's better to not through check them, so that when you end up stranded you still have your bags. Manually checking, at least with our system, also doesn't recognize short connections. A DL tag will have **HOT** printed on it if a connection is under 30 minutes, however the computer doesn't compare mannually entered connections.

IMO the only time manually checking is really useful is if you're doing something like SYR-CVG-LGW, then you have an 8 hour layover to go to FRA or somewhere... normally you'd have to claim/recheck in LGW due to connection time, but we can overwrite that and forward it to LH for you.

Oh for you UK folk I should add that per US regulation you do still have to claim bags on your first entrance point into the US, even if you have had them manually checked. However once you drop them off with TSA again you don't need to touch them until you reach your final destination.

Paul--I'm astonished that AA connected your bag but you didn't make the flight. Despite the fact that they didn't treat you well, hat's off to AA baggage service! That's rare that a bag makes it and the passenger doesn't! Heck, I think ATL asks for 40 minute connections for bag transfer purposes!
#142468 by Gill Smith
09 Oct 2006, 14:51
Originally posted by p17blo
Let me tell you that dispute an airline's own representatives selling you the flight, if you miss that flight by late arrival of your connection they WILL treat you like a 2nd class citizen. It has happened to me three times. The first time was AA and I simply could not believe they left me stranded at JFK after THEIR late arrival of my incoming flight - My luggage made it to LHR but I didn't. They put me in a hotel overnight - I had no money, no luggage (so no clean clothes or toiletries). Hotel was susposed to put on food which they did not and supply toiletries which were the standard stuff you would get in any hotel room. So when similar things happened with other airline on 2 further occasion I made a concerted effort to pay whatever it take NOT to connect or other than that ensure that I allow for a connection the following day.

Paul

My God, how on earth did they let your luggage on and not you, surely a massive security error?
#142482 by webdes03
09 Oct 2006, 17:41
Originally posted by Gill Smith
My God, how on earth did they let your luggage on and not you, surely a massive security error?


Bags often travel without the passenger, such as anytime your bag is delayed and it comes in on the next flight or a flight the next day. Technically it shouldn't on intl. flights due to a thing called "passenger bag name match" where the bag count is supposed to match- this is one of the reason's why it's a little more difficult to expecdite a delayed bag to an international destination.

But in answer to your question, it happens A LOT. As long as the bag has been in the possession of the carrier the whole time (ie: not been sent to a public area such as baggage claim) it's considered uncompromised as TSA has already screened it.

On the other hand, if a bag is misloaded to my city and it goes to baggage claim. We then find it after the flight sitting on the bag belt, and find out it was supposed to go to another city. The locks now have to be broken off by TSA so they can screen it before we can put it on a plane to send it where it was supposed to go.
#142570 by mysteryflyer
10 Oct 2006, 02:39
Thanks Mike for a really useful information snippet. I will try this next time I do a mixed bag of Star Alliance and report back :-)
#142575 by webdes03
10 Oct 2006, 07:29
Originally posted by mysteryflyer
Thanks Mike for a really useful information snippet. I will try this next time I do a mixed bag of Star Alliance and report back :-)


It may or may not work, however being that they're all STAR airlines, I would imagine they would be able to do it. I've done DL-EK, DL-BA-AI, and all kinds of really oddball ones, so I don't see why they wouldn't as long as they have the transfer agreements in place.

Just make sure you have clear proof for the originating check-in agent showing your flight numbers and routings, preferably on a company, travel agent or airline letterhead, or airline itn.
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