Coordinating 2 airlines for a trip
 

Has anyone booked tickets directly with different airlines to complete a multi city itinerary?
I checked some of the sites such as Orbitz, travelocity & expedia, which will combine the cities I need for one price; but I found that if I book a RT to NYC with one airline, and another trip of multi cities that brings me back to NYC with a different airline, I end up with a lower total price.
Please share your experience/opinion. I suppose I may have to claim the luggage myself and recheck it at the other airline in NYC?

Since we live "in the middle of nowhere", we can not use booking companies such as Orbitz, Expedia or Travelocity for travel. We use Southwest Airlines to get to Houston or Dallas and then start a package (flight and hotel) from there. We usually book packages with Funjet, since they come out the cheapest for where we are and where we want to go.

It is a pain to change airports in Dallas or Houston, but for the price it is worth it.

Just be aware that since this is two tickets - not one - neither airline is responsible if you miss the second flight due to delays. You will need to work with the second airline to try to find new tickets - and they are not obliged to give you any price other than the last-minute walk-up price.

Try calling the airlines direct or using their website rather than something like Travelocity. I haven't found that Travelocity works very well for multi-cities or from small airports.

You may or may not have to claim and re-check luggage. If the atrrival airline has a luggage agreement with the departure carrier you may be able to check the luggage through. BUT, you'll have to show BOTH tickets to the agent upon departure and ASK them if they will check the luggage through on the subsequent leg.

I've done this successfully in the past but it is not automatic, as you already know, and it CAN be done.

Good luck.

Another consideration is airline schedule changes. This can mess you up with your 2nd reservation. Aer Lingus changed our departure date well after we had purchased tickets from another airline to get us from Tampa to Baltimore.

They neglected to notify us, so we were fortunate in not having to pay a $100 change fee (per person), and Aer Lingus had to make arrangements to get us from Baltimore to Boston to take a different flight to Shannon.

I found fairly decent prices & schedule on orbitz, but it is with 2 different airlines. Is it better to book through Orbitz for the entire trip or do it on my own with the 2 airlines separately? so far the prices & schedules are similar; just a little less with the airlines,\.

As others have touched on, two different tickets are just that. The second airline has NO obligation if you don't show up on time because the first flight is changed, delayed, cancelled, etc.

I personally would only travel with all flights on one ticket, even if they are with different airlines. No small price savings would be worth the possible hassles or forfeiting the price of the second flight entirely if you miss it. Claiming luggage is the least of possible complications.

nancy161, I would suggest you book the whole thing at one time through Orbitz. A couple years ago I did this for a trip to HI, and when the outgoing flight was changed two days before departure, Orbitz emailed me - providing new connecting flights through different airlines. However this changed my trip from 3 flights to 4 (Fla to Hawaii). So I did a little research and found a better outgoing for the night before, which would bring me to Hawaii much earlier in the day. Then I called Orbitz and they helped me change the flights - even did a conference call with American Airlines. That surely was worth the ten bucks it costs to use their service.

P.S. I also find that Orbitz consistently provides more and better alternative connections with their open-jaw feature, compared to travelocity, expedia, etc.

nancy, unless your savings is substantial, at least a couple hundred dollars, I wouldn't attempt this. As nytraveller stated, if you miss your flight, you are screwed.

Agree with others, book this as one ticket through orbitz or SideStep.com.