If I book a return ticket to  a single destination through a travel agency or
 an online travel booking agent (e.g. destina, opodo, travelocity) and the trip
involves Multiple carriers , what is the comeback if I miss the
connecting flight through no fault of my own?
If the multiple carriers have a code sharing arrangement does that
make a difference?
Cheers

Mongolia

As an Airline employee that has worked at the airport and back office
for over 15 years here are my two cents.

To put it short: as long as your journey is on one ticket or
conjunctive tickets you and your baggage will be covered if something
goes wrong.

But for example, your travel is from Chicago-LA-San Diego. You buy one
ticket Chicago-LA-Chicago on airline XX and another ticket LA-San
Diego-LA  on airline ZZ. If airline XX is delayed and you miss your
connection on airline ZZ you are out of luck (up to a point). But if
travel is on one ticket and the flight is late, airline ZZ is
responsible to get to you San Diego. That is why sometimes it's not
always smart to purchase separate tickets to save just a few
bucks/pounds/euro. Not to say the rules that apply to your baggage.

In that case you could go to airline ZZ and tell them the problem and
as long as you show up at the counter within 4 hours after the
original departure time they will accommodate you, but usually on a
stand-by basis. From my time as a supervisor at the ticket/check-in
counter if that happened and the person was not a "jerk" I would "Rule
240" the ticket, which means another airline that had a flight that
departed sooner flight could take the ticket and collect the fare on
the ticket.

Whatever you do please don't loose you cool. My favourite is when a
traveller tells me that they will "never" fly your airline again, the
next week I would see them again. We all know that everyone buys the
lowest price ticket and there is really no brand loyalty when it comes
to airlines. When you insult the airline agent, you are just shooting
yourself in the foot.

My all time favourite is from the baggage service staff. When your
bags are delayed there is a saying that they have: There is only one
thing between you and your bags so don't tick me off. This also
applies to the gate agents and check-in staff, as there are always
seats next to the bathroom or over the wing (great window seats!!!)

An ounce of sugar is better than a gallon of vinegar.

Happy Trails.
Lufty

Lufty 

 Thank you very much for your very helpful comments regarding my question.
 As you point out I am probably like most other airline travellers who 
 wish to get from A to B at the cheapest possible price (I will however
 from some recent experience give Lufthansa very high marks in the service
 department)

 Lately I have noticed the proliferation of  online travel agencies. 
 When you book through these organisations it is not always clear 
 whether you are buying one ticket or multiple tickets. 
  
 To take your example of Chicago-LA-San Diego I can purchase 
 one ticket which means luggage will be booked through to San Diego
 and as you point out if the connection is delayed the airline is still 
 responsible for getting me to San Diego at no extra cost to myself.
 I am also assuming of course if it is one ticket , that does not mean 
 that it will always be the same airline doing the Chicago La route 
 and the LA San Diego route only that these airlines have a code sharing 
 arrangement.
 
 Very best wishes 

 Mongolia

 PS Lufty If you wish to further comment on my remarks I would be 
          delighted. However as you are not getting paid to do this I 
          certainly do not expect you to do this.

          I wonder if any researcher out there has anything further
          to say regardig this question

Hello Mongoli,

Their could be two competing airlines on your one ticket from
CHI-LAX-SAN and they don't have to have any code sharing agreement
(such as airlines in the Star Alliance, SkyTeam, OneWorld, etc). Most
airlines have interline baggage and passenger agreements. This is an
agreement for the transferring of baggage and split of money for each
leg of the journey. Southwest is the "major" airline that does not
have this agreement (to keep down costs down). Using an educated guess
I would think if you purchase your ticket from on online source you
should receive the ticket with the complete journey. As Southwest and
other non-interlining carriers do not participate or allow ticking
through those means. Also, in rare cases would a split ticket be
cheaper than having the whole journey on just one ticket.

If you do have two separate tickets for "our trip" CHI-LAX-SAN, you
would only be able to have your bags checked to LA. You would then
have to pick them up at LAX and stand in line to check them to SAN and
go through security. These days that would add a couple hours (or
more) to the total travel time.

Lufty

ps - thanks for the kind comment about Lufthansa. Most people think
they are the "most" expensive but that is not always the case. As the
saying goes "you get what you pay for", not to say that someopne might
be having a bad day. We are working hard so people will overcome the
thought of Lufthansa as a stiff and grumpy airline.

Hi Lufty

Thank you very much for your further comments which in fact have now answered
my question. Unfortunately I do not know of any way I can gave you the 15 bucks
which I think you more than deserve.
All I can say is if you know any Google researchers (who by the way
have been ignoring me lately :-)) , I think they owe you at least a
beverage of your choice  (Coffee , Tea , Wine, Beer etc.)

On perhaps a more bizarre note , when I was singing my high praises of
Lufthansa, I in no way connected your alias to the airline itself.
I assume from your PS comment that you work for or have worked for Lufthansa.

In a prior job , I use to travel to Hamburg, quite a lot on business.
The are the ONLY airline I know who could deliver my check in baggage 
to the carousal before I arrived at it. They also did this consistantly
On my last flight I was near the front and decided I had to get to the
carousal before my baggage arrived. No luck! As I was running into the
baggage
collection area (less than 5  minutes after I left the aircraft!) I
saw my baggage coming out on the carousal.

However my highest praises go to  Lufthansa on my last airline trip.
I needed to book a trip from London to Moscow and then returning from
Beijing to London two weeks later. When I inqiured with local travel 
agents in the London area they quoted fares of between £2000 and £3000
However I contacted a specialist travel agency who quoted me air fares
from British Airways , KLM and Lufthansa. Lufthansa came in with a 
rock bottom fare of £415 for the round trip.
It does not end there. On both the outbound flight (London to Moscow)
and return Flight there was a change in Frankfurt.
The Outbound flight was delayed at London (in no way due to Lufthansa 
but to some problem at the airport) I had only 30 minutes to make my 
connecting flight at Franfurt to Moscow. However with a lot of kind
assistance from Lufthansa air and ground staff I was able to make the connection.
(as did the luggage too: however from prior experience I had no doubt
the luggage would make it)
On my way back I had a more thorny problem. For some reason I discovered
on my way from Beijing to Franfurt I was missing the Frankfurt to London 
part of my ticket. This was a bit of a let down for what had been
otherwise a very memorable trip. The Lufthansa air staff were
incredibly helpful in
trying to track down my lost ticket including having me search my
carry on luggage and contacting Beijing to see if anyone had found 
a lost ticket.

Alas no ticket was found. However I was able to recover the recharge fee
through my insurance.

All the best for now.

Mongolia