Transferring w/United via Dulles - will I have to collect bags?

[shogan1977]

Hi All - I am flying with United to Orlando from Brussels via Dulles next month... Someone has told me I will need to collect my bags in Dulles, check-in again and go through security again...

Is that correct?

[lexxity]

You will have to collect your bags in dulles to clear customs. Now depending on your ticket type:

1.) if it is a through ticket, i.e. on the same paperwork then you will not check in again but drop your bags on the recheck and if you have your boarding card proceed to your next gate, if not you will collect your boarding pass from the UA desk.
2.) If on seperate tickets you will then exit the airport and proceed back landside and then recheck in.

Hope that helps and have a good trip. :ok:

[Gary Brown]

Again assuming you have a through ticket (and, if so, at Brussels they will issue a boarding pass for both flights, and check your baggage through to your final destination...), when you deplane at Dulles you will head towards immigration, and clear though that (it's your "point of entry" to the USA so you have do clear all the formalities there). You will then collect any checked baggage from the carousel and pass through customs (along with everyone else off the flight).

Immediately after customs - and *before* you leave the secure airside area - you will see a bunch of guys with carousels doing "re-check" for connecting passengers. You drop your checked bag - which should have been tagged to Orlando at Brussels - there, go though another personal security check right alongside those re-check guys, and head to the gate for your internal flight. After doing the re-check, do make sure you follow "Connections" - or whatever they call it at Dulles - not "Exit": you want to say airside.

This sounds complicated, but my experience of Dulles is that it's all pretty well-organized (which can't be said of all airports, US or elsewhere.....) and that the "bag and security re-check" is very quick, with only a minimal wait.

However, the secret is to make sure that at Brussels they check you and your bags all the way to Orlando. If they only check you to Dulles, than - as said above - you and your bags will have to leave the secure airside area, and go through the whole check-in palaver with UA again. But you shouldn't have to do that....

AGB

[shogan1977]

Thanks guys for the very useful info. I will be checked through - so that will make things easier.

[raffele]

When you travel to the States you always clear Customs at first point of entry.

At Dulles, once you pass through the TSA check point, you have the baggage carousels,, then the Customs checkpoint. Immediately after the checkpoint you should see on your right hand side a large hall with check in desks for you to recheck your bags and continue on (if you are through ticketed). Make sure you turn off otherwise you'll end up landside pretty quickly... And clearing landside security at Dulles is something you never want to experience!

[WHBM]

Major US points of entry are organised this way, which can be unfamiliar to Europeans. Everybody arriving from overseas has to pick up their bags and pass the customs officer, but right after this, and before you exit out into the terminal, there is a desk to recheck your bags onto the ongoing flight, so you don't need to carry them far.

As you will have been given boarding passes for both sectors as well when you checked in at Brussels, you don't need to visit a conventional check-in desk at all. You do need to exit out into the terminal, identify your departure gate, walk over to it (you are now landside in the USA), and go through security again along with the departing passengers.

Unlike Europe you then generally have to show your boarding pass about 4 times and your passport (always known as "ID, ID") about 6 times going through security. It's just the US way !

[G-ARZG]

Couple years since I did it, but at Dulles there was a seperate Immigration hall for transferring pax, so you didnt get mixed up with all the 'destination Washington' folks...