Bits: Airportr ski equipment offer, BA refusing to budge on ‘two tickets’ baggage transfer

News in brief:

Airportr offering free transfer of ski equipment this winter

We’ve covered Airportr a few times on Head for Points.  This is the luggage collection service whereby your suitcases can be collected from your home or office and taken to the airport for you to pick up in the departure terminal – or in some cases they can even be checked in for you.  

On your return, you can drop your cases with them whilst you head straight to your home or office – and at London City on BA domestic flights they will even find your luggage on the carousel for you.

We reviewed the service here if you want to know more about it.

Until 31st March, Airportr will transport your winter sports equipment for free when you pay for at least one suitcase to be collected.  Given that ski and snowboard equipment is even less fun to carry around than suitcases, this is well worth a look.  Details can be found on the Airportr site here.

British Airways refusing to budge on checked through bags

Late last year, all of the oneworld alliance members were told that they could, if they wished, now refuse to check through bags between oneworld airlines when the passenger was travelling on a separate ticket.

In plain English, this means that if you were flying British Airways to Doha and then connecting to a Qatar Airways flight to Delhi – booked on a separate ticket – BA would refuse to check your bags through to Delhi.

British Airways jumped on the opportunity to do his because it is a money saver – they are no longer liable to compensate you if your bags fail to connect.  They really pushed the boat out, however, by also refusing to check through baggage between two British Airways flights on separate tickets.

This is astonishingly inconvenient.  In the Doha example above, the passenger now needs to collect their baggage in Doha, clear immigration in Doha – which includes paying for a Qatari Visa, go the Qatar check-in desks (luckily Doha is a one-terminal airport) and then clear security again.  Some people have found themselves separated from their luggage because they did not have the necessary visa to go landside in order to re-check their bags.

Cathay Pacific made the same changes as BA.  However, within a few weeks, they backtracked under substantial pressure from passengers.  You can now check through a bag on two Cathay Pacific flights when booked on separate tickets.

BA will not budge.  If you thought it would, you should know that travel agents are receiving a continual bombardment of emails from the airline – two in the last week alone – reminding them not to do this.

Here is typical example from last week (the bolding was in the original):

“It is important that you never advise customers that the airports may be able to through check-in when they have tickets issued on separate bookings, as the airport teams are unable to assist resulting in frustration for the customer at check-in.

In addition to not being eligible for through check-in, customers travelling on separate tickets issued on different PNR’s will need to collect their bags at the transit point and re-check in, their baggage allowance and lounge access may differ depending on the fare paid for each sector and Conditions of carriage guidelines only apply for the disrupted sector and not on any separate connection.”

Charming.  It saves a few quid though, so …..

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