RE: Scott’s comment. If you see above, she DID call Delta, on Air France’s advice. It’s obviously *not* simple – they said it “shouldn’t be a problem” which I now realize (silly me) is not saying that it’s NOT a problem. AND, what Chris didn’t include in the article was that the Delta check-in agent said, rather rudely, when my mom told him she had phoned with this exact question, was that “there was no record of your call.” As if anyone working any gate anywhere fields any customer calls.

Bottom line, I think the traveler should be bound by the contract of carriage of the airline or rules of website where the ticket is purchased. I purchased this ticket on Air France’s website. I don’t care if they put me on Air Saturn, I should be bound only to the rules of the ticketing airline. In regards to the guy who was saying how he got put onto American – tough situation, but Delta should have an agreement or absorb the baggage for their premiere customers.

This could all be alleviated by airlines having the gumption to sell “bundled” tickets, rather than nickle and diming us to death for basic services.

Again, thanks to Chris for his help.

P.S. Southwest is my carrier of choice. The one recent time I needed to bring something to their attention, I received a personal phone call from a customer service manager within 48 hours, plus $100 travel voucher. Too bad they don’t fly to France.

So I book through Orbitz that has me connect both ways on a different airline. Who gets how much for my checked bag each way to my final destination?

Here lies Fast-Gun Eddie
RIP
Nobody was faster

Problem #1 – I travel with 3 checked bags, 2 of which are over 50 lbs. As a PM with Delta, (at that time) I could check 3 at 70lbs for no fee. AA? $180….Period…..end of discussion….. I asked both the AA and Delta ticket agents for a little compassion, after all, I booked my flight on Delta, DELTA moved me to AA. Nope, it’s a RULE and we all know, RULES IS RULES!!!

Problem #2 – Short version, 4 hours and 20 min on the plane, sitting 75 feet from the departure gate on an ERJ (ie baby jungle jet) with no refreshments stocked (heck, it’s on BMI-ORD, why put ice onboard?). Watched my Delta 1st Class seat arrive and depart (about 20 min late) and arrival at ORD at 2am (oh, yeah, up till about midnight we kept getting the speech “All flights are delayed in & out of O’Hare right now, so your connections should be OK” !!!!!!!)

I was so mad about Problem #2 that I forgot about problem #1 until I read this article!

Better yet, how about a video. United steals the clothes off my back video? Could be a funny parody of them pilfering through your luggage. If you make millions just give me a cut =).

Justin

I think it is worse than that. I don’t think any of these respnses from Delta actually addresses the situation at hand. They obviously didn’t read the customer’s complaint at all. The answers were just nonsense.

The initial carrier on a leg is the carrier whose baggage fees apply for that part of the journey. Whoever you are supposed to check in with, call them. It’s that simple.

There are absolutely no benefits to any traveler from code-sharing

I’ve seen a few codeshare flights priced lower than none-codeshare ones on certain routes.

I’ll make a naive (and probably wrong) guess that that Delta Airlines supervisor or whoever probably thought that baggage fee should be charged regardless of who’s the marketing carrier. Kudos to Delta if they indeed refund that after all the trouble.

@ Wayne Dayton It is my understanding that non-US airlines cannot fly between US cities so in order to offer flights from more cities, they must align with a US carrier. The international leg of my flight left from Washington, DC. I could have gotten myself there on another airline but if it were late and I missed the connection, I would have no recourse but to lose an expensive ticket. I also could through check my luggage (although this tume at greater expense than I think reasonable). I had one ticket, so theoretically one responsible airline. I chose a four hour layover in Washington, rather than a two hour which was also available because with a trip this long and important, I was leaving as little to chance as I could.

You can see those rules printed in the left column of this page, next to your answer. See that big white empty space? Yep, those are the rules. None and void.

You paid you get your luggage on board. Not to get it off, and in one piece.