Long gone are the days when virtually all airlines would check through bags on separate tickets as a courtesy. Some airlines – I’m looking at British Airways here – won’t even do it when the two different bookings are with them.
This can cause quite a bit of irritation for those frequent flyers who are using points for part of their trip. Usually it means allowing more time between flights to make sure baggage can be collected and re-checked for the next flight.
Check Through Bags on Award Tickets at Qantas
Australia’s Qantas is a little bit more sensible than British Airways. You can check through bags on separate bookings Qantas to Qantas or Qantas to their close partner Emirates.
When it comes to their oneworld alliance partners, connecting Qantas to a partner on different PNRs is not permitted. It is also not permitted to non-alliance airlines.
I have done this myself, when I used an award ticket to fly Sydney to Auckland on Qantas, connecting to a cash ticket on Qatar Airways from Auckland to Doha. The agent did not know it could be done, so I had to point out this was the only exception and eventually she found I was correct.
Overall Thoughts
The Qantas policy is listed at the bottom of this page on the site for travel agents. It’s definitely one to keep handy if you’re going to do this. As it is little used, check-in agents probably won’t be immediately familiar with it.
Award tickets are great value when redeeming British Airways Avios for Qantas flights. Therefore it makes sense to offset the cash fares and book a reward flight instead. Now you know your baggage can be checked through too.
Did you know about this obscure policy at Qantas? Do you think all airlines should check through bags? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by EamonM25 via Wikimedia Commons.
Interestingly I recently flew BNE- SYD on a QF reward ticket to connect with MH to LHR on full revenue. QF would not check our bags through.
I had to collect In SYD and recheck.
Yes, you need to point it out to the check-in agents and you also need to have the website linked in the article handy. It’s rare for people to do, so the agents don’t remember it’s a thing. Once you point it out, they check and check and then realise it can be done and do it.
I don’t see the rationale behind this policy but I suppose it’s better than being more restrictive.
Separate tickets means that a customer could book a connection time too short, miss the flight and then the airline is on the hook for getting the baggage to the customer and the cost that entails. That’s the main reason for not doing it. A single ticket by nature already has all the “issues” ironed out as it’s sold like that with ample connecting time etc. So it’s mainly financial and hassle reasons for the airlines.
Sorry I was not at all specific. I don’t understand why a blend of paid and award tickets would allow bags to be through checked but not all paid or all award tickets.
Ahh! The reason for that is because you can’t book an award ticket and add paid sectors or vice versa. The tickets by nature have to be separate, so Qantas is not penalising you. If you want to book SYD-SIN-SYD as an award and the onwards SIN-LHR-SIN as cash, you can still check through… as you could only book your SYD-LHR-SYD as a cash ticket or an award, not a combination of both.