Planning to make the trip to San Pedro in February using Continental from Kansas City to Houston and Taca from Houston to Belize City. Will Continental check my bag through to Belize or just to Houston and how is the bag actually picked up in Houston by Taca,,, or will they pick it up? Really don't want to do a carry on and don't need two different answers to my question from Continental and Taca. Can someone on the board share their experience with me? Appreciate any help.

As Continental and Taca are not code share partners, I would say you have to treat the flights as totally seperate trips. Pick up bag and recheck for the Taca flight.

as just an educated guess, i was thinking the same as isle.

I'm sure there is a good reason why you are not using Continental for both legs, but would you mind sharing, just 'cause I'm curious?

I cannot answer for sure if they will transfer for you. I would strongly suggest you do it yourself. In Las Vegas, US AIRWAYS did this for all the airlines. However only about half of the bags made it on time with the passenger.. IAH is huge so the odds may be about the same...

Just count on it not happening (the baggage transfer, that is) and you'll have a much more pleasant trip. Pick up your stuff from Continental when you deplane and recheck it on TACA. We've done it several times and it's not that much trouble to do it yourself.

Also be prepared for different rules on baggage allowances being applied. Even on the same airline with a through ticket I fell foul of this in Miami on American - I crossed the Atlantic with one baggage allowance, then found it halved for the final leg to Belize. Nice little earner for American - they charged me $200 extra, the only alternative being to leave one bag behind (and obviously lose it).

Pug,, the reason is that Continental has a fare from KC to IAH for $174r/t and Taca has a fare from IAH to BZE for $275r/t. Taca doesn't fly to KC and Continentals r/t from MCI to BZE is $825. Sounds like it will just be a "carry-on" BUMMER.

Careful of this. I had to do it once and missed the connection in Houston since I had to go back through security after checking in at Taca (w/no luggage). I had over an hour for the connection but still missed it. Carry on would be safer but you still may have to go back through security the way Houston terminals are set up. Had to spend the night....

TACA checkin in IAH was horribly slow a couple of weeks ago. Large families checking large amounts of luggage and only 2 gate agents was the problem. I had a 2.5 hr layover and spent on hour of it in line checking into my TACA flight.

Another thing about IAH is that stupid inter-terminal train. It's very slow which might also hinder you making your connection.

Taca can be slow to check in, for reasons that you mentioned, but I love the tram, never had a problem with it.