We are flying Quantas from Sydney arriving LAX at 9:45 AM with a 2 hour 45 minute layover before boarding our seperately ticketed flight to Boston and are very concerned that it will not be enough time to deplane, get our baggage through customs, check-in at the AA counter, go thought security and board our flight.

Any suggestions to facilitate this process at LAX or any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Pretty sure that Qantas will check your bag all the way through to Boston on AA. We did ours on two separate tickets - MEL to LAX and then LAX to SEA, no problems. You come out of baggage, go through customs and then drop your bags for them to put them on your domestic flight. Whole process took less than an hour for us. We had a longer layover, but I still think you'd have plenty of time.

That's correct if you make sure the QF (no "u" in Qantas BTW) agent knows of your connection at LAX.

Thanks inthechips2 and Gardyloo.

I hope you're right about the transfer of baggage. That should help a lot. I tried finding out about Customs at LAX, but didn't see anything that would answer my question.

Even if it weren't the case, 2h45m is plenty of time to handle it the old fashioned way.

We've made the morning connection through LAX coming off of Qantas in under 2 hours several times.

Thanks Clifton for your message. It's a great relief to know of your experiences at LAX. We talked to our TA yesterday and were considering changing our flight to the next one (12 hours later) to get us to Boston at 6:00 A.M. the next day, just to be on the safe side.

With your words of encouragement, and of others, we've decided to keep our original flight and hope for the best. The tickets are for a seperately ticketed flight to Boston, so we would lose them, if we couldn't make it on time.

QF should be able to check you in all the way to Boston. Get your AA BPs in Sydney, that way AA will know you're coming.

Also, I didn't check the schedules, but are you sure the only other BOS flight is 12 hours later?

Assuming that's true, and if by chance you miss the original flight to BOS, have AA re-route you through JFK. There are many more flights to NYC where you can connect to a short flight to BOS almost hourly.

Have your travel agent call QF and tell them to link the 2 PNRs (QF and AA).

At worst AA has what it calls a "flat tire excuse". If you do miss the original flight, they will put you on the next one as a standby.

All that said, I wouldn't worry too much. Under normal circumstances, you will make the flight with enough time to spare for a screwdriver at the terminal 4 bar.

Have a wonderful trip!

I looked at the AA timetable. They are down to 3 non-stop LAX-BOS, at around 7:30a, 12:35p and the red-eye 9:30p. You arrive LAX very early at 9:45, but if you miss your 12:35p, then you have to wait for the redeye.

There are flights to JFK at 1:15, 2:15, 3:15, 4:15. The only possible connection is the 1:15p flight connected to the last JFK-BOS at 10:40p. You need to make sure they confirm you on the latter, or you may get stuck in JFK.

Another possibility is Chicago. A 2:00 flight will get you in at around 7pm; or one another hour later at 8pm. There are flights ORD-BOS at 7:50pm and 9:50 they can possibly confirm you on.

No same day connection via Dallas possible.

Not saying any of these will work for you, but at least you know what some possible options are, so that you know what to ask for.

Also, think about the worst case scenario. You're very late getting into LAX, missed all connection, and AA refused to put you on later fligths or all those fligths are full. What do you do?

The low-fare carrier Jetblue flies from Long Beach, CA to Boston on a red-eye. One-way fare is $299 + tax. That is probably your best bet for getting to Boston on your own. You should have time to make it from LAX to LGB. [I haven't investigated how, but there should be some coach service; or rent a car.]

But MAKE SURE to call AA to not cancel your return BOS-LAX flight or whatever portions remaining in your itinerary.

With 2 hours layover we missed the flight !
We were coming from Papeete with Air Tahiti Nui onto Lufthansa to Frankfurt with a separate ticket.
The customs check in LAX is the worst I have ever seen ! There are no separate lines for transit passengers and it took 1 and half hour in line for passport inspection. Then we had only 30 minutes left and to re'check with Lufthansa security etc.. at the end we missed the flight !.
Be sure that QF is SYD will check your bags in through Boston as they usually would not do it !

AAFrequentFlyer
When you say, "At worst AA has what it calls a "flat tire excuse". If you do miss the original flight, they will put you on the next one as a standby." would that include "seperately ticketed flights" (non-connecting flights) as is in our case?

mmarcell - Yes, they'll let you do same-day standby. But as I pointed out, you only have one more flights non-stop to Boston that day, plus a few connections that leave earlier.

My worry is that you standby for that non-stop red-eye, but that plane is full and you can't get on. AA may not extend their offer to the next day, and you'll be stuck.

Respectfully I will have to disagree with <b>rkkwan</b>.

AA has been very good about accomodating ticketed people. As I said earlier, get QF to link your PNRs and check in all the way to BOS with QF in SYD. AA will see you as checked in and coming from SYD. That does not give you any more special rights, since it's still a separate tickets, but it will help you tremendously if the QF flight is delayed for any reason. QF and AA are exteremly close partners in LAX. They both feed passengers to the other and they even share the Admirals Lounge and the fabulous First Class Flagship Lounge in AA's terminal 4. QF paid tons of money to build that lounge.
Anyway, again, I would not worry too much. AA will work with you if you happen to miss the original flight.

AAFF - I don't think we're disagreeing. At least I don't disagree with anything you said. Just stating the worst case scenario.

Within the past few weeks I came back with Qantas from Melb and had 2 hrs between flights. Qantas was on time and I had lots of time to change terminals get something to eat and get my next flight which was also on time. Obviously if a flight this may be a different tale! Your bags will be checked all the way so it is just a matter of collecting them through customs and put them on the transit belt it is all pretty clear when you are there. By the way my bags must have been the last off the plane and there was a bit of a crowd at customs and I still had no problems with time. Best of luck and have a good flight!
J

I've made up my mind to look at the glass half-full and hope for the best. Thanks FF and Jules for helping me make that decision. If I continue to worry about the transfer, it will keep me from enjoying the vacation.