Code share Delta - Boston to Perth - couldn't check my luggage through to final dest

[ronnie66]

Just now: flying business class from Boston to Perth today. Office booked the flight. About 5 legs to reach Perth. Boston - Atlanta - Lax - Sydney - Melbourne - Perth (I know why via Melbourne if one can fly from Sydney to Perth... well it was booked, so no drama's).
Check in at Delta Priority check in. Not overly friendly. But this was the amazing part: she couldn't check my bags all the way through to Perth. Because the system only allowed her to print 4 lines on the bagage label. She suggested to check in at Lax again. No thank you. Then she suggested to check in at Melbourne again. No thank you. Dragging my suitcases around more than necessary is not an appealing option. "Computer says no" situation. Honestly. It is 2013. I know I have to clear customs in Sydney, before connecting to Melbourne and Perth, so my suggestion was to label my luggage through to Sydney. Which eventually she did with a huge sigh.
She couldn't provide me the boarding passes for the connecting flights either. A bit disappointed with the "seamless and easy code share flying". I enjoy the VA experience until you reach the USA and continue with domestic Delta flights. It is not very pleasant. I might have to reconsider these domestic US flights.
Any company in the USA doing a better job? I am aware of the options with Virgin America. I believe they do a better job, but not always possible.
Looking forward to reading your experiences. I have never came across this issue before. I was slightly irritated. I have only a 90 minute transfer in Sydney, so I will probably don't make my connecting flight to Melbourne. Maybe they will be able to transfer me to the flight Sydney-Perth. But that might be too much to ask. If that would happen something good came out of this situation.
I am a Velocity Platinum member at the moment.

 

[serfty]

Re: Code share Delta - Boston to Perth - couldn't check my luggage through to final d

It is rare that the booking systems the airlines use can handle more then four segments in a row for checked luggage.

It is somewhat of an industry standard.

I would have had it checked through to Sydney as you did as you have to access your luggage there anyway. You could then simply recheck at the VA transfer desk at the northern end of T1.

As for the BP's, that's not uncommon (if fact it's generally easier to get luggage checked on multi segment than getting the BP's).

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Re: Code share Delta - Boston to Perth - couldn't check my luggage through to final d

as serfty said it all seems pretty routine to me. I would have just asked bag checks through to Sydney too. bp's can be picked up along the way as needed.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Re: Code share Delta - Boston to Perth - couldn't check my luggage through to final d

I wonder when they do print out the maximum 4 flights whether all flights are on a single tag or do the first 3 flights print on the first tag & the fourth one on the second one - ie same bag tag nbr just in two pieces. If two tags print out anyway surely all the techno geeks need to do is program the system to print two more flights on the 2nd tag.

If airlines use the Amadeus Altea system for checkin you can do up to 6 sectors but I've only ever seen that happen once for someone going BNE QF SYD QF EZE LA SCL LA LIM AV BOG AV MDE so bags were tagged to MDE (Medellin Colombia) & they got the first 4 boarding passes but had to get the last 2 from Avianca in transit at Lima.

In the OPs case I don't think whether bags being tagged to SYD or PER will make any difference in making the connecting flight or not but it could have a big impact in the other direction as you can only use the bag drop post customs in LAX if it's already tagged through to BOS. You'd need to find DL checkin then do the TSA bit again so you'd need to allow extra time for that.

 

[williamsf1]

Re: Code share Delta - Boston to Perth - couldn't check my luggage through to final d

What you were trying to do is called IATCI ( Inter Airline Through Check In)

Your itinerary is very unusual having 5 flights all one after each other ( Lucky you are in J)

IATCI can be a bit of a lottery and the more complicated the itinerary , the more chance of fail. To start off with , all the flights need to be open for check in. Other reasons for failure are one of the flights may be “ offline” – for example could be a change of aircraft happening at the time you are checking in.

 

[ronnie66]

Re: Code share Delta - Boston to Perth - couldn't check my luggage through to final d

Update: it happens to work out in my advantage. I was glad I opted for Sydney. Obviously I missed my flight to Melbourne (it was very busy at the Domestic Transfer Counter from Virgin - very understaffed). They rebooked me to the Sydney Perth flight (direct). So eventually it was a good situation. However it was a very long trip and quite draining.