2 Random luggage questions (extra bag and transferring bags)

[2Tiggies]

This pertains to the return journey.

As many of you may be aware, I have had an interesting experience with my flights for this trip, and after many schedule changes, we are now booked on a return flight that lands at Gatwick and gives us a whopping 55 minutes to connect for our Glasgow connection home.

There is little I can do about it as the next flight to Glasgow is in the evening and I'm hoping that if we do miss it, I can negotiate them sending us to Edinburgh an hour later instead.

My concern however is, although I know that they won't fly our luggage home without us boarding, what happens if we board and the luggage does not have enough time? Is this hour (give or take) sufficient for the bags to be shifted from the one flight to the next? There is no terminal change and it's the same airline. Anyone have any experience or knowledge?

I contacted Gatwick directly and they said it's a question for the airline. I have contacted AA who said that I need to get hold of BA as our domestic flight is BA. BA said I need to speak to the airport .....

Anyone? Help?

The other question is, I wanted to pre purchase an additional back on our return flight as I have done in the past. AA does not sell extra baggage in advance online (I can pay $100 at the airport). There is no option to do so on my booking this year which I suspect is due to a code share issue. I have my locator number for BA by the way so I'm looking on there. I contacted them and they have been extremely helpful saying they don't know why I can't pre purchase, but I am welcome to buy it at the airport (for an extra charge)

 

[Elise79]

If your cases are checked through and you make the flight and they don't it is still their responsibility to get them to you

Can't help with purchasing an extra case as I never have - sorry

 

[2Tiggies]

If your cases are checked through and you make the flight and they don't it is still their responsibility to get them to you

Thanks Tracy. I was wondering if there would be any way to check if they have been loaded before we board. The airport is an hour away from home. I know in the past they would deliver to the door (a few days later). Not sure if this is still the case?

 

[MissPrincess101]

To be honest having worked in airline ground operations I wouldn't have thought 55 minutes is enough for baggage offload and onload - especially off a (no doubt chock-a-block) Orlando flight. But as Elise79 says if you are ticketed all the way through to your final destination, and haven't made 2 separate bookings then your airline is obliged to get your cases to you - especially if they have booked you with only a 55 minute connection!!!

As for your extra baggage - I would have thought you should be able to pre-book an extra bag coming home - I've done it before. I'm sure I just booked it on the website. Have you got your locator for AA? If you have, then have a look at your booking on their site and see if you can book a bag on there - if you can it will save you some cash.

Hope some of this helps!!

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[MissPrincess101]

Thanks Tracy. I was wondering if there would be any way to check if they have been loaded before we board. The airport is an hour away from home. I know in the past they would deliver to the door (a few days later). Not sure if this is still the case?

You could ask before you board but if it is a rush then the staff will probably just want you boarded.....leaving bags behind is a necessary evil that you have to do sometimes to get a flight away on time :-(

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[2Tiggies]

You could ask before you board but if it is a rush then the staff will probably just want you boarded.....leaving bags behind is a necessary evil that you have to do sometimes to get a flight away on time :-(

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True. If our trans Atlantic flight lands early, we should probably be fine. If it arrives any later than scheduled, which is not usually the case, but anything can happen, I might deliberately drag my feet getting through passport control, knowing they won't send our bags without us.

 

[chmurf]

I've been confronted to both issues, so I hope I can help.

55 minutes are supposed to be enough. You're over the MCT (Minimum Connection Time) so that should be okay.
If for any reason your bags don't go through, it's the airlines responsibility to get them to your home.

Worst case scenario : you get to your home airport, wait at the carousel and your luggage don't show up.
You'll need to go file a missing luggage form (the office should be inside bagage claim) and they'll try to locate your bags on their computer screen.
If they can't locate them, you will fill in a request, and, as soon as the bags are found, the airline will have them delivered to your door.
My 3 suitcases where lost by Delta in november 2012. They were delivered by La Poste (FR equiv for Royal Mail) 3 days later.

(nightmare scenario, if you luggage do not shop up within a few days, you can kiss them goodbye ...)


Now, on the extra luggage thing. We always do that as my wife is a serial shopper.
If your airline does not allow you to prebook an extra suitcase, you will be allowed to do so at online check in.
During that process, you'll need to indicate how many checked bags you will have for each passenger. Fees for extra bags are collected at that time (credit card charge)

I have done this on our last trip with US Airways (which is merging with AA)

Note that often, the fees you pay online during online check in are lower than the fees you'd pay at the airport.

last piece of advice, if you have so many luggage that you need to check another bag on top of your extra bag, split the luggages between you and your DD
2nd bag is $100 extra, 3rd bag is $200 extra.
so, say that you and your DD have 4 checked luggage. It will be cheaper to travel with two bags each, rather than you having 3 checked bags and your DD only one bag.

also think about bringing an extra luggage tag for the extra suitcase (but those sold at Disney's are so cute anyway )

I might deliberately drag my feet getting through passport control, knowing they won't send our bags without us.

that's what they say.
But in reality, many a bag has reached its destination without their corresponding passenger being on board ...
If it's loaded, they won't unload the whole darn plane to find them on such a tight schedule, because they know that 99% of the time, by the time they find the luggage in the hold, and delay the plane (with hefty gate fees) the passenger would have made it to the plane and they'd have to reload. So, the bag stays in the hold if the passenger is not flagged as a "possible threat"

 

[MissPrincess101]

in reality, many a bag has reached its destination without their corresponding passenger being on board ... If it's loaded, they won't unload the whole darn plane to find them on such a tight schedule, because they know that 99% of the time, by the time they find the luggage in the hold, and delay the plane (with hefty gate fees) the passenger would have made it to the plane and they'd have to reload. So, the bag stays in the hold if the passenger is not flagged as a "possible threat"

Well.......I've been in the industry for 17 years, and was in flight dispatch (basically you're responsible for all flight paperwork, safety and security of the departing aircraft ) for 9 of those and never was I told on my many many recurrent security training days that passengers could be flagged as "possible threats" and if they weren't you could let the bags travel without them - I and all of my colleagues worked on the fact that if any passengers did not turn up and had bags checked in then you started to locate and offload the bags, whether it delayed the flight or not. If the passengers turned up before you found the bags - brilliant, off you all go, if not you proceeded to get the bags off. It was Department of Transport legislation brought in after Lockerbie and is still in force today.

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[MissKip]

We only have an hour in gatwick before our Glasgow connection as well although I'm flying the whole way with BA. This isn't the first time I've done an hours connection and the bags usually aren't a problem as long as they are checked all the way through to Glasgow from Orlando

 

[DLPDreams]

(nightmare scenario, if you luggage do not shop up within a few days, you can kiss them goodbye ...)

Nope, I have had the unfortunate situation where my bags took a whole 10 days to turn up (of a 14 day holiday where I was unable to buy anything other than in the very expensive hotel boutique - outside was a small fishing port!!!). Thanks to good old BA . That was a situation where we had a short connection time, although flying with the same airline - lord knows where my bag went!

Well.......I've been in the industry for 17 years, and was in flight dispatch (basically you're responsible for all flight paperwork, safety and security of the departing aircraft ) for 9 of those and never was I told on my many many recurrent security training days that passengers could be flagged as "possible threats" and if they weren't you could let the bags travel without them - I and all of my colleagues worked on the fact that if any passengers did not turn up and had bags checked in then you started to locate and offload the bags, whether it delayed the flight or not. If the passengers turned up before you found the bags - brilliant, off you all go, if not you proceeded to get the bags off. It was Department of Transport legislation brought in after Lockerbie and is still in force today.

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Totally agree. My DH has been involved with civil and military aviation for years and there is no way they will let an unaccompanied (unassigned) bag fly on a flight. They will halt the flight and take that bag off before taking off - no matter about delay - it is a massive security and safety risk. If, god forbid, anything were to happen and they knew they'd had unassigned baggage on board, heads would literally roll . This has actually happened to us in Dubai before - we were sitting on the aircraft on the tarmac watching the baggage handlers chucking bags around right, left and centre - they even made an announcement that the delay was due to offloading unassigned baggage!

 

[MissPrincess101]

This has actually happened to us in Dubai before - we were sitting on the aircraft on the tarmac watching the baggage handlers chucking bags around right, left and centre - they even made an announcement that the delay was due to offloading unassigned baggage!

Snap......last time I was in Orlando weirdly!!! :-D

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[2Tiggies]

Thanks you for all the replies. Sorry it's taken me a while to get back on here.

I have finally got clarification on the second bag story. AA do not have an option to pre purchase luggage. It has to be done at the airport. BA have given a variety of responses ranging from "the website is playing up" (seems fine to me), you can buy at the airport and finally after a phone call with someone who sounds like they know what they are talking about and took the time to double check, it looks like I can't pre purchase but have to do it at the airport, so DD is in for a shock when I tell her I ain't paying $100 for another bag

Turns out I may not do online check in either because there is a problem with the linking between the two sites that enables it so if I want to pre select my seats I have to phone AA (watch them tell me to phone BA ) Anyway, it's a way out yet so perhaps that issue will have been addressed by then. I prefer online check in because the last two flights I have done on a BA carrier they have bumped people from the flight and the first ones bumped are those who didn't do OLCI. They can bump us on the way back, not on the way out.

 

[MissPrincess101]

Î had similar issues when I went to New York in October......booked with BA but on an AA flight......I got an AA locator from BA so I could log in on the AA website and save seats - see if you can do that? At least you'll have seats saved then if it still works that way?? :-/ We didn't online check so I've no experience with that I'm afraid :-(

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[2Tiggies]

Î had similar issues when I went to New York in October......booked with BA but on an AA flight......I got an AA locator from BA so I could log in on the AA website and save seats - see if you can do that? At least you'll have seats saved then if it still works that way?? :-/ We didn't online check so I've no experience with that I'm afraid :-(

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Thanks, I made several calls to BA and one to AA today. (One to AA because they have a good command of the English language so they understood my question and answered it). BA is another story!

Code shares seem to become very complicated. I can't pre select seats because I booked with AA and one flight is a BA carrier. We also have connecting flights and there are mixed carriers in both journeys, just to make it more fun

Apparently there is a problem with the sites when they divert so I was told I can do OLCI but must do it on BA and once I do that, I will be diverted to the AA site to continue, but that the site is currently producing an error code and I will have to wait to check in. I might just pay to select seats on the outbound. It annoys me though because if I want to choose where I sit, I have to pay because their system isn't functioning and they know it (??!!) Oh well. I saved £100 booking the same flights code share rather than with BA. The up side is dealing with AA has been a pleasure. We will see what happens when we fly. BA has not scored any brownie points with me since I gave them another try after avoiding them for a decade but I will give them a fair chance.

All I want is to get on the flight, have a reasonable seat choice when I check in, land on time and I'm happy. If they are overbooked coming home I'll happily volunteer to be bumped

 

[MissPrincess101]

Yeah....it's not your fault their systems don't link up!!! Honestly, airlines ;-) ( I can say that, I work for one haha! )

Yeah getting bumped off going home is no hardship at all!! It happened to me coming back home from Vegas with Virgin - and I can honestly say they were fantastic!! Nice to have an extra paid for night in Vegas and a free return flight on top!! Cheers! :-D

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[2Tiggies]

Yeah....it's not your fault their systems don't link up!!! Honestly, airlines ;-) ( I can say that, I work for one haha! )

Yeah getting bumped off going home is no hardship at all!! It happened to me coming back home from Vegas with Virgin - and I can honestly say they were fantastic!! Nice to have an extra paid for night in Vegas and a free return flight on top!! Cheers! :-D

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Unless there is a good reason for me not to do so, I have scored nicely from a fair share of bump benefits in my years of flying

I am possibly digressing on my own thread, but in 2012 the Magical Express driver overlooked our resort when we were leaving. Of course I was fairly chilled out until I realized something was very wrong and if we didn't leave soon we wouldn't make check in closing for our flight. The short version of the story is that Disney's Bell Services arranged a taxi, took our flight details and called BA to advise what had happened. He couldnt stop offering apologies and I told him all I needed was a letter for travel insurance confirming that I had been there on time etc etc ..... He couldn't get over the fact that I was so calm about it all. When we arrived at MCO there was a BA agent waiting for us and we were fast tracked through security and escorted to the gate. Boarding had officially closed but they put us on the flight. It's not the first time I was highly irritated to have all the plans I'd made in the hour running up, for the next 24 hours

Anyway, back to the topic, on further searching it appears that this glitch has been present for a few months now and I am hoping that they will have resolved these issues by the time we travel, given that all airlines involved seem to be aware of it.