Checking bags with an overnight stay

[Hokulea]

All,

With the semi-merge of American Airlines and BA I was put in a couple of situations I've not experienced before. A couple of months ago I booked a flight with AA from the US to LHR and the return trip involved a BA flight from LHR to LAX and then onto HNL the next day. The BA agent checked my bag all the way to HNL without me realising it. I picked up the bag at LAX as normal, took it to the hotel and without thinking removed the baggage label.

The next day I realised what I'd done while checking in for the LAX-HNL flight, and after some negotiation got AA to rebook my bag without a fee - using the airport check-in machines didn't give too many options.

So, two questions I hope someone might be able to answer since I'm doing this trip again soon.

Is it OK to leave the baggage label on my bag overnight and just check it in the next day without telling the online system I have a bag to check in? It already knows I have a bag but doesn't know I took it out of the system for an overnight stay. I'm hoping it's OK just to hand it into the usual place in LAX with the label BA put on it.

The other question is has anyone done a trip with the new agreement between BA and AA? I'm trying to pick a seat but there seems to be no way of doing this on either the AA or BA webpage until 24 hours before the flight. I can pick seats on AA flights (since I booked with them) but can't do the same on BA codeshare flights.

And just in case anyone suggests this, I have called BA and the agent seemed as surprised as me that I couldn't manage my booking. Just wondering if anyone has a tip or two. Thanks!

[Capetonian]

Something strikes me as odd here. If your bag was checked LHR LAX HNL, it should not have come onto the baggage carousel at LAX for you to pick up. Therefore, I don't think it was.

As far as I know you can't book seats on BA without paying their exorbitant ripoff fee of £40 for longhaul. I stand open to correction on that.

[Hokulea]

Capetonian - if you travel to the US with checked baggage you have to pick it up at the first (US) airport you land in and clear it with customs. If doesn't matter if your next flight takes you to another US city.

[Capetonian]

I'd like to see an answer on this from someone who knows check in procedures in respect of baggage I don't. If you can check your bags in to your final destination but still have to clear them en route then there seems to be a paradox, on the other hand it woulddn't seem to matter whether your transit is overnight or not, but there must be rules.

[strake]

I tend to mainly fly direct to the USA but a couple of months ago I flew to Dulles and then on to Miami. I had to pick-up my bags at IAD and re-drop for the domestic. From what I remember, the tags had IAD and MIA printed on them.

[scotbill]

Seats on BA can be booked for free within 24 hours of departure. The fee applies only if you wish to reserve a seat earlier than that.

[radeng]

Hokulea is right unless they've changed the rules since September. It's been like that for many years now. Otherwise there's problems in doing a customs check, as the bag will arrive with a load of domestic ones.

[Capetonian]

Seats on BA can be booked for free within 24 hours of departure. The fee applies only if you wish to reserve a seat earlier than that

Yes, I knew that but my response was unclear. By 24 hours before departure the DCS will have nabbed most of the unreserved seats and anyone leaving their request until that time will end up with the worst seats on the aircraft, assuming of course that it's full.

Perhaps as more and more people vote with their credit cards and stop using BA, it will be forced to reconsider this decision. I imagine that the events of the last week or so will not have been good PR for them, although I accept that there is a valid point of view that they made a better decision by cancelling all flights than the airlines who operated some and then ran into problems.

[VS-LHRCSA]

When I did check in, we would advise passengers with connecting flights that they would have to claim their bag at the first point of entry into the US, leave the tag on and re-check it for the next flight at the designated baggage belt.

If they were going to be stopping over, we would only check the bag to the entry point. They would then have to check their bag in the main concourse on return to the airport.

[alcockell]

I have to ask though - why on earth doesn't the US seem to understand about airside transfers right through to the destination?

Surely - if the baggage is transferred from flight to flight without me seeing it - it's staying sterile? Meanwhile - I stay airside and clear customs at my ultimate destination.

What's the problem with that?

[PAXboy]

... and clear customs at my ultimate destination.Providing there is a Customs post at your ultimate destination.

Holiday muse ... what is my ultimate destination? Ah philosophy! :8

[Hartington]

The definition of a "stopover" for fare purposes has changed over the years. At one time it was up to 8 hours but these days it's often up to 24 hours. So the check in system saw this as a through checkin and issued one bag tag. As the OP noted that's to his advantage because AA wouldn't charge a fee for the domestic sector.

But I have a real issue with what would have happened if the OP had desposited his bag on leaving customs (which is the usual way in the US). AA would have to look after it overnight and I'm not convinced any airline would want to do that or, even if it did want to, whether it would succeed in getting the bag on the right flight next day.

Then there's the whole question of this bag leaving the airport and the security questions we all get asked. Yes, you can answer all the questions the "right" way but somehow the idea just feels fraught.

[Capetonian]

As a matter of interest, a stopover is generally 24 hours as Hartington says. The definitions are different in USA (or maybe in North America) and in Australia/NZ. I believe it's defined as 8 hours in the former zone, and overnight (ie passing midnight) in the latter. I have it somewhere but couldn't dig it out.

Anything exceeding the parameters below is a stopover :

- up to 4 hours in the US, Canada, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, for wholly domestic fare components.
- the same day in Australia and New Zealand for wholly
domestic itineraries.
- up to 24 hours everywhere else.

[Hokulea]

Thanks to everyone for your replies. I guess this is an unusual situation so will test it on my next trip by leaving the baggage label on my bag and seeing if AA will accept it when I check in after a night spent in an LA hotel.

Hartington seemed to understand my question more than most and appreciate your reply. I'm really not willing to leave my bag overnight with AA or any airline, plus I want what's in it for the hotel stay. If I end up having to pay the charge for domestic checked bags so be it, but would rather not especially as this is an international trip on one booking and I'm not supposed to be charged for luggage according to AA.

This used to work smoothly with AA before they merged with BA. An overnight stay didn't present any problem, I just checked the bag in the next day with no charge as it was all part of the same trip.

I hope they get these sort of things sorted out in the near future (the super-friendly BA agent I spoke to on the phone assured me they will). I've also given up on trying to assign myself a seat on the BA flights - the website just keeps giving me an error and no-one at BA is able to help. I'm not calling AA - not worth the hassle.

Thanks again for the replies.

PS. As for booking seats, yes, I'd rather avoid having to wait until 24 hours before the flight as the choice will be limited. For this upcoming trip I'd have rather chosen AA flights between LAX and LHR but it was a late booking and the flights were full, so wouldn't have been able to choose my preferred seat anyway.

[MathFox]

I do not thing there is a "flow" in US airports for "drop off your bag and then go to the hotel overnight." After passing customs there generally are two lanes: One labeled "arrivals" and one labeled "connections". Bag (re-)drop is in the connections lane, but I am not sure that passengers can move back to arrivals easily from there.

[radeng]

You can at some airports - ORD for example. I think it also applies at PHX.

[Hartington]

Even if the connections line forces you back airside it's very easy to simply exit - after all you've already been through immigration etc. The only issue would be having to pass through security again but there are airport (ATL) where you have to do that to get landside anyway. In any case I still maintain that leaving your bag with an airline overnight is a no no, both from the airline point of view and your own.

[parabellum]

At LAX, on the international arrivals terminal, (non US airlines), once through customs you can either turn left, up the ramp and out of the airport, or turn right to other terminals and there is a baggage conveyor to drop your baggage, which, in my experience, will have originally been labeled with a tag that will say both LAX and your final destination in the USA, I would imagine the other international terminals are similar.

The USA has a policy that all pax must clear immigration and customs at first port of call in the USA, some final destinations may well be domestic only and without regular on site immigration and customs facilities. All baggage will come to the carousel at the first port of call. I would tell original check in that I intended to break my journey at LAX.

[Hokulea]

parabellum -

I would tell original check in that I intended to break my journey at LAXThat might be the easiest option but it'll cost $25 to do that. Not a lot of money relative to the cost of the ticket but since this is an international trip on one booking with AA I'm not supposed to pay that charge and have not had to deal with this until the codeshare agreement between AA and BA.

As I said previously, I'll let the LHR BA agent do what they did before and then see if I can still check the bag the next day with the original tag still attached. I'll report what happens.

[Hartington]

Take a 2nd, empty, don't mind losing it bag as well and leave that in the care of the airline overnight and see what happens!

[Hokulea]

Not a bad suggestion at all! After all my trips between the US and UK I've so many odd socks I don't know what to do with them, but now I do! I just need to find out if I get charged for a second bag...

[Hokulea]

I promised I'd report when trying this trip again and have just got back home so this is what happened:

Trip booked with AA and the return trip was LHR-LAX-HNL-ITO with an overnight stop at LAX. Flight from LHR to LAX was BA, LAX-HNL was AA, HNL-ITO was Hawaiian - all AA codeshare partners. My bag was checked in all the way to Hilo (ITO) by BA at Heathrow despite the overnight stop. (note - I checked in online with BA but did not check in for the HNL or ITO flights at that time).

At LAX I took my bag to the hotel but didn't remove the tag. The next morning, I checked in using AA's self-service machines and clicked on "no bags to check in" with advice from an AA agent (this worried me a little) and just handed it in to the TSA bag drop off which they accepted without a word.

My bag didn't show up at Hilo when we landed. Fortunately, it did show up on the next flight from HNL and was delivered to my home by Hawaiian.

So, I'm not sure what to recommend. This is the first time in roughly 30 trips between Hawaii and LHR that my bag didn't turn up so not a good sign, but it did turn up shortly afterwards and I suspect the delay was at HNL rather than LAX simply due to the timing of the bag's arrival, but could be wrong. I definitely don't recommend leaving the bag overnight with AA at LAX plus I needed it anyway for the hotel stay - too many things could go wrong. Simply leaving the tags on and handing it to the TSA worked but not without some worry when the bag didn't turn up.

It seems the safest way is to tell the BA agent to check the bag only as far as LAX and then check it again yourself in LAX the next day but pay the $25 fee (or negotiate it away as I did last time which is a bit of a pain).

On an unrelated matter, I witnessed some exceptional service by an AA flight attendant during the LAX-HNL leg which motivated me to write to American praising her. You don't see this too often on AA but she was exceptional and hope she hears how much she was appreciated!