DELTA to VIRGIN BAGGAGE: Am VA Platinum and travelling from Washington to LAX with Delta on a DL flight number to connect to a Virgin Australia flight to BNE with a VA flight numbe

DELTA to VIRGIN BAGGAGE: Am VA Platinum and travelling from Washington to LAX with Delta on a DL flight number to connect to a Virgin Australia flight to BNE with a VA flight number. Totally separate tickets. Can Delta check baggage all the way to BNE? I am beginning to really dislike the whole virtual alliance thing with VA for international travel.....nothing is as it seems.

I'll allow others more knowlagable on the specifics to answer the question but I totally feel your pain about the vurtual network. It's brilliant in theory but many functional roadblocks when in practice.

I thought it might have just been me Riley!

If you just want to plonk around domestically they are great but you really start seeing the massive gaps the moment you start venturing outside AU on their alliance partners. You've got to think about it too much - I just want simple and sadly I'm learning it is not! OneWorld had its challenges but it was consistent and you knew what you got!

I'll allow others more knowlagable on the specifics to answer the question but I totally feel your pain about the vurtual network. It's brilliant in theory but many functional roadblocks when in practice.

Short Answer: Yes

Long Answer: Delta will be able to join the baggage ID number to both bookings & send it all the way through to BNE. I had a similar scenario in November. Flew EK from Colombo to Singapore & then SQ to Sydney. No alliance, but Emirates check-in in Colombo were able to attach the baggage ID's to the SQ booking & check them all the way through through an 'interline agreement'

NO they will NOT check the bag all the way to BNE. I have been in this situation so many times I have lost count. I always book my tickets separately and I have asked every time to get my bag checked all the way to Brisbane on VA8 and they have refused. It doesn't matter that I am a VA Platinum either. Both Delta and Virgin America won't do it. I just flew from San Francisco on Virgin America to connect to the evening flight on VA and they wouldn't budge even though I was in First Class on the flight and in business on VA! 

It is not that they can't because they certainly can do it. They just won't.

Even VA used to check my bags all the way to Hawaii on Hawaiian Airlines from the Gold Coast on a VA domestic flight and now they refuse to do it because of separate tickets. 

it is so frustrating because I also fly with Alaska Airlines connecting to Qantas in LAX and Alaska always is happy to check the bag all the way to Australia even on separate tickets. 

If anyone has had actual success with a DL TO VA bag check, then you must have had a really nice ground agent

I can confirm they do, I recently did a similar thing - booked to LA on VA then all internal flights were booked through Delta, dropped my bags off in New York and they were checked through to Brisbane. You just have to show the delta ticket agent your onward e-ticket.

I had the same thing when flying NYC-LAX on Delta and LAX-BNE on Virgin – the check-in agent proactively offered to tag the bag through and even printed the VA boarding pass from the separate booking. Mind you this was November 2014 so YMMV, of course.

Thanks everyone, I guess I'll 'give it a go' and see what happens when I check in @ DCA! I have been a VA advocate for a few years but this just highlights the gaps in this whole partner/virtual alliance model with VA that I've experienced in the last few weeks with some international travel. It should be clear and easily findable. This quasi alliance regime is just too loose and difficult to engage with on a regular basis. I rather they had even less 'partners' but absolutely nailed the service offering for their top tier FF's. 

Was going to use VX out of IAD as it is direct to LAX but I get no baggage allowance with them on a cheap economy ticket whatsoever and no included lounge access as I understand it, so think I will go DL from DCA even if it is via JFK. Was also concerned with only 2 flights per day on VX out of IAD and if something goes belly up, the options will be quite limited to get back to LAX on the same day for the evening VA8 departure.

Ah .. the days of old paper tickets can be invaluable ..

You don't see it today on e-Tickets, but each airlines ticket and res system has a field called "Issued In Conjunction With". Given that Virgin Australia and Delta Airlines have a joint marketing and codeshare agreement, the easy way to do this is simply to ring Delta in Australia on 1-800-144-917. Explain the situation and give them both ticket numbers (these will be on your e-Tickets). Ask them to 'link' the domestic US Delta ticket to your international Virgin ticket - as in "issued in conjuntion with".

Whilst you will still have two seperate tickets, the two trips will be conjoined in DL's RES system and will be visible to the Delta IAD check-in staff. That should enable the IAD staff to through-check your luggage to Australia without any question / query. It would also be wise to ensure that you show both tickets to the IAD check-in staff at IAD as well.