Hi Offroader – you asked for thoughts – here are mine….

Just to reconfirm what others have said about it depending on airline & country etc. I would also mention that it can also depend on the load factor on the flights in those cases where the airline might be willing to check your bags all the way. And if your bags are not checked all the way, you will have little option but to go collect from the carousel on other side of immigration.

As an aside, I did look at the UA and OZ flights on that route and see that they both have a very varied on time performance history, with, on balance (during period 19 Aug – 02 Sep), flights arriving later rather than earlier.

I would agree that the routing you have chosen is the best from SFO to REP – but would very strongly suggest you use UA to ICN and have an OZ zed as (last ditch) back up, regardless of whether OZ can tell you or not that they would or might check your bags right through.

The main point is that you probably would not want to chance any connection problems when there is only one onward flight a day. (Four days a week if you were thinking of travel before 28 Oct. But from your original post – I guess it is Nov onwards).

Best regards - Lee