Originally Posted by jack_essex
I'll be flying with British Airways from Heathrow to New York JFK next month and would like to know if anyone has used the online check in for American flights? I have already selected our seats so know that is not a problem but is it better to check in online rather than at the airport? If you check in online will you still be issued with a boarding pass at the airport or will the one you print out at home be the only one?
Some personal hints for this, from experience:-
Long before you get to the -24 hour point when OLCI opens, make sure that all your Advanced Passenger Information is complete. Otherwise, you will spend ages doing this when you're trying to OLCI, and others may be grabbing any choice seats that happen to be available right at the moment that it opens for you. Don't try to do this just before you OLCI, either, because that tends to open a server session on the BA computers that doesn't include OLCI as an option, which will again delay the time at which you can actually access OLCI.
If you are able to get to a computer at exactly 24 hours before departure, go to a screen where you can enter your booking reference and surname to access your booking. Type in those details but then wait. Double click on the time in the tray in the bottom right hand corner of your taskbar (if you're using Windows) to get the clock showing. As soon as the second hand has reached the top of the clock to reach -24 hours, click the button that allows you to access your booking, then go straight to "check-in online", and then to the seat selection screen if it will let you. It helps if you have an idea which other seats you might want to grab. If something better shows up on the display, change seats quickly before someone else gets in there.
If the flight is busy, though, or someone is working on it or yet to work on it, then you may not be able to look at the seat map and you should get the seats you've pre-allocated. This does not prevent you from going back into the OLCI system later to see whether the seat map has come live, and change your seats then if you wish,
so long as you do not print your own boarding pass.
Do not print your own boarding pass, even if offered, because once you do that you will no longer have access to the OLCI system, nor will you be able to use the self-service kiosks. I also hate waving a piece of A4 paper around when the card boarding passes are so much easier to use. And your home-printed boarding pass is just another bit of paper to lose en-route - the whole idea of e-tickets is to prevent you from losing anything important between home and airport. If you do lose your home-printed boarding pass, there is no alternative but to go to a desk and ask a human for a duplicate.
When you get to the airport, I'd suggest picking up your boarding pass from a self-service machine and asking the machine for a ticket receipt when offered. This is printed on a handy ATB (boarding pass) size card so it's easier to show to US immigration if they ask to see it. Flimsy bits of A4 paper are more difficult to manage (see above). The check-in desks don't always have the card stock to print these on, although things should be better now that they're not having to print catering vouchers on them. The machine will very probably want you to insert the credit card that you bought the ticket with, if you booked directly with BA on the Internet, but as you should be asked to show this at some stage during your trip through the airport, this will do the trick.
After you've picked up your boarding pass, you can then drop any bags at the Fast Bag Drop desk.