BA bag drop at Madrid

[Iainm]

Would anyone be able to advise on how early you can drop bags for a flight back to the UK from Madrid?

Wife and I are arriving into Madrid from Rio at the end of January on an Amex 2-4-1 voucher. We are due in at 1030hrs

We have a separate booking (using Barclaycard upgrade vouchers) back to Glasgow via Heathrow. That flight doesn’t leave Madrid till 1750hrs.

With them being separate bookings we can’t link them or book bags right through. Is it likely that BA won’t let us drop till 3 hours before the flight?

I have looked at earlier flights home, there is availability at 1200hrs, but I think that would be really tight. Mid-afternoon flights have no business availability.

I really don’t fancy 3 or 4 hours landside, does anyone think I might manage to drop bags before the 3 hours point?

I’m wondering if I’d be better booking a hotel and leaving Madrid the next day.

[SamG]

You’d be better off putting the flights home on the 2-4-1 ticket – you could do the 1200hrs if you did that. Otherwise IIRC BA doesn’t operate flights in the afternoon so there desks won’t be open until around 3pm or even later which isn’t ideal for you as you say

If you could get on an Iberia metal flight to London then you’d be able to drop bags at any point

[Iainm]

SamG wrote:

You’d be better off putting the flights home on the 2-4-1 ticket – you could do the 1200hrs if you did that. Otherwise IIRC BA doesn’t operate flights in the afternoon so there desks won’t be open until around 3pm or even later which isn’t ideal for you as you say

If you could get on an Iberia metal flight to London then you’d be able to drop bags at any point

Thanks.

Adding the flight back to the UK onto the 2-4-1 was going to add lots of Avios and if memory serves me cost as well.

Other options I guess are cancel the upgrade voucher on way back and just take an economy flight on Iberia. Or pay cash.

But that’s good information that BA staff won’t even be there till 3 hours ahead of flight. Cheers

Thanks

[Scott]

If you are considering cancelling the reward flight back, how about booking direct to Edinburgh on Easyjet or Ryanair, rather than via LHR on BA/IB? Granted the times of the budget flights aren’t always ideal, and there are one or two days in the week when these airlines don’t have a flight.

[SamG]

Iainm wrote:

SamG wrote:

You’d be better off putting the flights home on the 2-4-1 ticket – you could do the 1200hrs if you did that. Otherwise IIRC BA doesn’t operate flights in the afternoon so there desks won’t be open until around 3pm or even later which isn’t ideal for you as you say

If you could get on an Iberia metal flight to London then you’d be able to drop bags at any point

Thanks.

Adding the flight back to the UK onto the 2-4-1 was going to add lots of Avios and if memory serves me cost as well.

Other options I guess are cancel the upgrade voucher on way back and just take an economy flight on Iberia. Or pay cash.

But that’s good information that BA staff won’t even be there till 3 hours ahead of flight. Cheers

Thanks

I had seen it mentioned on here that it causes weird cash figures and it would be a lot of Avios to add two further segments. Perhaps they could be in economy. But that’d be the ideal scenario

Otherwise I’d consider a hotel and a very early flight the next morning.

[jek]

I had a similar situation with coming back from Costa Rica. I did not add the leg from Madrid initially and BA CS was then quoting ridiculous amounts of Avios and cash to add the leg. However, with the great advice from HfP I tried again, this time via X and was quoted acceptable amounts similar to what the leg would cost as redemption. Not having to go through passport control and checkin was totally worth it even with the service fee. The only drawback is that there is not time to enjoy the great lounge at MAD because the connection is too short…

As a recommendation you should at least get a quote from BA for adding the return leg to your booking.