"Marrying" two existing, but separate, bookings

Evening all,

Does anyone know if it's possible to marry/link two existing bookings to give protection should the first leg of one booking be delayed and then potential missing the 2nd flight, which would actually be the first leg of a new/different booking? Does that even make sense?!?!?

I have a VS return trip booked LHR/JFK and it now transpires I need to fly to BOS within that trip, and I was wondering if I could arrive at JFK and (assuming sensible minimum connection times given hand luggage only AND global entry) then go straight onto BOS with Delta? I appreciate completely that they'd be two different bookings with the two different airlines, and therefore two different PNRs so technically if the first flight to JFK is delayed its not necessarily DL's problem, but with them being partners, I wondered if there's any way of getting any protection?

If anyone has any experience of this, I'd be most appreciative before I go ahead and book. Of course there's always flexible fare tickets, but I'd rather not go to the extra expense if it's not going to be necessary.

Mr G

Yes it makes sense but no this is not possible.

If you want full protection then all the flights need to be booked on the same pnr i.e at the same time. It is not possible to add other flights afterwards.

As above, the question makes perfect sense, but in effect you are saying to Virgin "I've booked a flight with you, are you now prepared to cover the cost of any delays / rebooking if I miss connections to/from an extra flight I've now decided to take?"

Or to put it another way, you're moving the goalposts after the initial reservation has been made. Expect the original rules of the/each booking to stand (i.e. no protection) or cancel both and lose a lot of cash and rebook on a single PNR when you are protected.

It is noted that the OP has Global Entry, so this should certainly help in making connections - no guarantees though.

Airlines used to take note of connecting flights booked separately for information, so if one flight was running late they'd know where you were.


Not sure if they'll do it now.

Thanks everyone. I knew it would be a long shot, but as we know "real world" examples are sometimes more useful. I might book the DL legs and ask them to make a note on the booking, at least the ball is in their court should the timings get tight and they wonder where one of their passengers is.

From my experience the US airlines are normally pretty relaxed when it comes to missing connections (even though yours is not, technically, a connection).

They always seem fairly happy to rebook you on to the next (or previous) flight if you're late (or early) if there's space as they can easily replace you with a standby passenger.

Having said that it's still a risk and technically you're on your own. The ball certainly isn't in their court - if you're not there when they close the flight, you're at their mercy.

And to be honest 'notes' in bookings are usually used as a way of getting you off the phone!

They only matter if someone has an actual need to look into the details of your booking. Which isn't actually all that often.