Can You Through Check Bags On Separate Airline Tickets?

There are some situations where you may find yourself traveling between your origin and destination on separate airline tickets. Maybe it was cheaper to book an itinerary as two tickets rather than one. Maybe you booked an award ticket for one segment, but had to book a separate positioning flight using cash.

If you’re traveling on an itinerary with checked bags, what are the odds of being able to check your bag at your origin, all the way to your final destination? Let’s discuss that in a bit more detail, as it’s quite nuanced.

Airlines have the ability to check bags between tickets

Airlines have different levels of cooperation, ranging from interline agreements, to codeshare agreements, to joint ventures. Technically speaking, airport agents have the ability to check bags through to your final destination, as long your travel is all on airlines that have an interline agreement.

An interline agreement is a very basic level of cooperation between airlines, so airlines even often have this kind of an agreement with competitors. For example, below are the airlines on which American has a baggage interline agreement (per ExpertFlyer).

Now, just because it’s possible to do this, doesn’t necessarily mean an agent will do this. After all, airlines have varying policies when it comes to through checking bags, and that will generally dictate what agents are willing to do.

However, my point is simply to say that there’s not much consistency here, and in some cases, agents have discretion with what they’ll do. For example, I’ve been able to check bags through between airlines that only have the most basic interline agreement, and nothing more (like between Emirates and Lufthansa).

Airline policies on through checked bags vary greatly

What are the policies of the major US airlines when it comes to through checking bags between separate tickets? Airlines really are all over the place. Here are the policies (as I understand them) of American, Delta, and United, ranked from best to worst:

• United has a pretty good policy, and will typically allow you to through check a bag to your final destination, as long as you’re connecting to a Star Alliance partner
• Delta will let you through check a bag to select partners, including Aeromexico, Air France, China Eastern, KLM, Korean Air, LATAM, Virgin Atlantic, and WestJet
• American basically tells customers to pound sand, and typically won’t even through check bags on two separate tickets both for travel on American

Let me strongly emphasize that there’s still going to be a ton of inconsistency between airline agents when it comes to their willingness to through check bags. You’ll always want to leave extra time for check-in when through checking a bag, and should also bring copies of your separate tickets, to show at check-in.

Also, even on airlines that do allow this, don’t count on this working with 100% certainty. It should work, but it all comes down to the agent you’re dealing with. Of course in some situations, airlines use contract agents, who may not be as familiar with policies.

Lastly, if you are connecting between airlines on separate tickets, at your intermediate point you’ll want to give the check-in agent or gate agent your bag tag, so that they can make sure it’s properly recorded on your reservation. Your bag should make it either way, but it’s a best practice.

Why airlines have such varying policies

As you can see, airlines are all over the place when it comes to how customer friendly their policies are for through checking bags.

Some airlines are customer friendly, and realize that through checking bags onto a partner airline is a win-win. It makes the passenger happy, and it minimizes the amount of staffing needed. It can also be an incentive to book a ticket on a partner over a competitor.

For example, a while back I connected from American to Iberia in Madrid on two separate tickets, and even though the two airlines are joint venture partners, you can’t check your bag through to your final destination, so we had to reclaim our bags in Madrid. That’s kind of frustrating and customer unfriendly, especially when airlines highlight how seamless joint ventures are.

Why do some airlines have such unfriendly policies? Well, on some level, because they don’t really care about the customer experience. But in all honesty, there are a couple of primary reasons:

• In some situations, airlines may be missing out on checked bag fees if you can through check your bags; of course this wouldn’t be the case if you’re checking bags within your allowance
• Airlines just don’t want to accept the liability of getting your bag to your final destination, in the event that things go wrong, given the potential liability and compensation they may have to pay

Bottom line

Airlines have varying policies when it comes to through checking bags on separate tickets. While airlines are generally capable of checking bags to the final destination as long as they have an interline agreement, that doesn’t mean they’re willing to.

In the United States, you’ll find that United is generally pretty “friendly” when it comes to through checking bags to partners, while American is the other extreme.

What has your experience been with through checking bags on separate tickets?