We have an upcoming trip where we fly into LAX from the Cook Islands (RAR) on Air New Zealand and then connect to United onwards to SFO. We have a 2.5 hour connection time between flights. I'm thinking that should be enough time for customs & baggage retrieval. I assume they will check our luggage onwards to UA but I think it will come out for customs at LAX. Do we have to carry out luggage after customs to the Terminal 7 or do they have a system to forward the bags to UA in Terminal 2? And is 2.5 hours sufficient time for the connection?

Thanks.

I do not know much about LAX, but I do know this:

Everybody has to go thru Immigration, pick up bags off carousel, and take them thru Customs at the FIRST point of entry into USA from overseas, regardless of the airline and/or terminal of your connecting onward flight.

If using same airline you can have your bags tagged all the way to the final destination from the departing airport but you STILL have to pick the bags off the carousel and take them thru Customs at the FIRST point of entry into USA. There should be a connecting flight bag drop just outside the Customs exit.

I'm not sure about the latter (bag drop) if the connecting flight is on different airlines/terminal.

When I flew from Australia to LAX, Immigration went very quickly. However, if you get a few 747's arriving at the same time, it could slow down a bit.

http://www.airnewzealand.co.uk/trave..._lufthansa.htm

Meant to add, if one of the airlines sold you the ticket (as opposed to buying two separate tickets) you're "protected" in the event of a misconnection; i.e. you'd be put on the next available flight. If you bought the tix separately, then 2.5 hours is touch and go, especially if your RAR flight is late.

Just to clarify that Air NewZealand comes into T2 and UA departs from T7.

After you drop off your bags at customs exit, you have to go over to T7. You can either take a free shuttle (which will stop at 3, TBIT, 4, 5 and 6 first); or you can walk through the garage area to the opposite bank of terminals.

I have timed this before, (not coming from the Cooks), and it took around 2 hours. This time we have a 2 hour layover, but we did get the single ticket on the same airline, so if we miss the flight, we should be put on the next available one. We are thinking about only doing carry on luggage, just to save some time. I think you will probably make it OK

Some United flights from LAX to SFO depart from terminal 6. If your gate number is 60-69 then it is T6 and it is definitely better to go thru security there, instead of T7, for a T6 departure (not a bad idea for a T7 departure, even).

I don't know if UA/UX operate LAX-SFO flights out of terminal 8. If your gate number is in the 80s then you'd go thru security at T7 and walk over to T8. Terminals 6,7,8 are connected airside.

sfonorth,

Air New Zealand and United are Star Alliance partners, so you should have no trouble checking your bags all the way through to SFO.
Once you go through customs in T2, you should be able to re-check your bags right there. Once that's done, go outside and take the LAX shuttle 'A'(airline connection) bus, which goes from terminal to terminal. The flight to SFO will depart from either T7 or T6, T8 is basically for UAX now. Be sure which terminal the SFO flight departs from, it'll save you quite a bit of walking.
2.5 hours should be plenty of time, unless you get stuck in a very long immigration/customs line.

Have a great trip!