British Airways clamping down on ex-EU tickets – our first example?

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• Flystein.com says:

  17 Aug17 August 05:50

  Easy solution: carry-on only 🙂

• flibbly says:

  17 Aug17 August 06:03

  There has always been a number of US outstations where short-checking of bags is made very difficult if not impossible. I don’t see that this case is anything different.

  There may be something to the rumours, but I don’t see this story as adding any weight to them.

  (On the rare occasion I do an Ex-EU I fly the last leg, so I don’t personally care that much)

  • Mike says:

    17 Aug17 August 06:09

    Exactly. Short checking has always been an issue. Just leaving a longer gap on the same day has never been a fix for this and they should have been prepared for them to refuse with a backup plan, or just booked it the next day. Nothing much to see here.

• DaveP says:

  17 Aug17 August 06:12

  Fingers crossed that this is a rare example where the flight out to origin is on same day. Otherwise there may be quite a few HFP readers sweating over recent ex-Germany to Honk Kong offer who had not planned to take return flights (following a few days break upon return to UK) to Germany.

  • Callum says:

    18 Aug18 August 02:13

    I may be misunderstanding you, but there’s no way in Hell BA would ever offer an option to check in bags with a stopover of “a few days”, let alone insist on it.

    • victor says:

      18 Aug18 August 03:26

      I recently purchased the a well priced Spain to Asia ticket; MAD-LHR-HKG-PEK-LHR-MAD. I added a stopovers at PEK, HKG & LHR, each at least 48 hrs.

      Many of these BA Europe to Asia fares allow one or two free stopovers in Europe and two free stopovers in Asia. The tip is, to book through a travel agent as it can be too complex for ba.com or OTA.

      • Callum says:

        18 Aug18 August 13:55

        I didn’t say stopovers weren’t possible, I said BA would not store bags at the airport for several days during a stopover.

        Well, unless possibly you “accidentally” forget to reclaim it!

• Thomas says:

  17 Aug17 August 06:17

  OR, just take the last leg, and then fly to London, you already got your heavy discounted fare! Just play the game correct and take the flight as intended! Sometimes it is better to just “Take your time for travelling”. A substantial discount for a few more hrs of your time is a pretty good deal. I bet not all HFP readers are London bankers with not a spare minute of time to waste!!!! So take the discount, and take the flight!

  • Alan says:

    17 Aug17 August 06:53

    Agree – I view it as a great price so happy to take the extra flight (and get the extra TPs). For those that don’t live in London we also have the issue of needing to book a flight home from London and it would look even more suspicious to BA to have an LHR-EDI (or wherever) flight on the system. Yes you could avoid putting your BAEC number in but they may still tie it together. Little Red was an option but only for another month or so.

  • Callum says:

    18 Aug18 August 02:22

    You don’t have to be a London banker to value your time… Plus it isn’t just time, it’s money for the flight back to the UK.

    While the fares are such good value you can’t complain at having to fly LON-XXX-LON unnecessarily, if there’s an option not to then why not?

• Sandgrounder says:

  17 Aug17 August 06:28

  Nothing new here. Let me know when they start taking people’s Avios away, or change the Ts & Cs and introduce a financial sanction.

  • Sandgrounder says:

    17 Aug17 August 06:34

    …after the event, that is.

  • Lady London says:

    17 Aug17 August 12:40

    Or if someone wins in court, in any country

• Paul says:

  17 Aug17 August 06:46

  Whilst not doubting that this incident occurred it is simply further evidence of BA staff making up the rules as they go along. There is absolutely nothing which says that you must through check your bags. There can be very many legitimate reasons for not doing so, the least of which is BA’s colossal incompetence at handling transfer baggage.
  I use ex EU but when flying West use AA metal on the TATL as their product is simply light years ahead of cramped world. From LA and from HNL I have bags checked in to LHR and generally at kerbside and never a quibble.
  Am currently in Indonesia and got here on Qatar an airlines whose business Class product out shone BA F in every aspect other than seat footprint. My bags were checked into my final destination on separate tickets from T5, though I had to write out the routing as the BA check in agent was so poorly trained she did not know the 3 letter codes for DOH or DPS. Lovely girl but had all the experience of Saturday staff inPC world and could not decipher the QR boarding passes!
  If you want to avoid BA’s stupid rules don’t fly BA

  • Will says:

    17 Aug17 August 07:09

    Careful. Not all AA product is light years ahead of BA. See the 777s that haven’t been retrofitted (admittedly they are in the process of refitting them at a stupidly slow rate) and the 757s (pre merger US birds).

• erico1875 says:

  17 Aug17 August 06:59

  Agreed.
  The last 2 times i have booked my daughter BA, transiting through London, her luggage has went missing ..

• Will says:

  17 Aug17 August 07:06

  I agree with others this isn’t a clamp down its just the way it’s been.

  I don’t understand why people want to drop the last leg. It’s not that much of a bind to do the final leg and the positioning flight. It’s the price to pay for a cheaper fare. Of course, there is a simple answer…play the game. If you can’t be bothered to take the final leg then don’t bother booking an ex-EU.

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