BA interline transfers
Can any one please put me right about problems with BA interline transfers? I regularly have to transfer between BA and Avianca at Madrid.
1. When I buy my ticket from AV in Colombia they now frequently cannot access anything except full Y or J fares for the connecting flights with BA to/from LHR, so I end up having to buy separate e-tickets from each airline. I believe that both BA & AV use Amadeus, so why are interline tickets so difficult?
2. Since I am travelling on unrelated tickets, I understand that BA will be entitled to make me - or the charity for which I work - buy a new ticket if I miss my flight with them because the AV flight is late, and that AV will not have to accept liability for this. Is this correct?
3. AV still allow pax to check luggage right through to LHR, but BA insist that one must reclaim it and check it in again in MAD. A colleague who returned to the UK this week gave the IB transfer desk at MAD her AV baggage number and IB confirmed that they had entered it into BA's system. But when her case did not arrive in MAN BA denied all knowledge of it. They read her a lecture about passengers' duty to ensure that their luggage is not marked for interline transfer to BA, and said that they would arrange for her case to be delivered this once, but never again. If the system still accepts interline baggage transfer to BA, is BA really not required to honour it? Is this part of a strategy to force small carriers like AV to adopt BA's stingy new baggage policy?
BTW the new T4 at MAD is an absolute nightmare. My BA and AV flights actually use adjacent gates at the extreme end of T4S, but getting between them now takes - on good days - at least an hour, walking fast, because one has to go via a great trek half-way down the terminal, immigration, the underground train to T4, baggage claim, customs, check-in, security, emigration, the train back to T4S, and another great trek back to the gate. Not recommended!