Complete the last leg of a booking

[matt6099]

Hi

I booked a rather long / complex route to the US in the summer. It involves flying from DUB – LHR – ORD – MCO – DFW – LHR – DUB
i had to book via the BA exec call centre as the internet wouldn’t take the booking. That said the agent was great and eventually found the routing i had costed up and they waived the additional fees. I got this at a great price of £7600 for 4 people in CE/CW and AA first (4-5 hours of trawling and playing around with routes and dates). When I completed the booking the agent advised me that I could “miss” the last leg – LHR – DUB without penalty or any further repercussions. I would just need to ask DFW to check my bags through to LHR instead of DUB.
Part of this trip is a push to maintain silver status however i have read and seen articles previously that suggest this “advice” is not correct

Any advice / thoughts? I haven’t booked the final leg in home from DUB yet as i am thinking getting off at LHR would save me 3-4 hours especially as I am back in the office the following morning. Apologies if this has been covered i stopped after page 3 and couldn’t see anything related

thanks in advance

[Rob]

You can do this BUT you made a mistake – the last leg should have been booked out of City.

Staff are encouraged NOT to short-check bags and you could find that they end up in Dublin, at which case you’ll have to follow. If you’d done LCY-DUB as the last leg you would have been 100% certain to get them back at Heathrow.

Make a plan with your family as to whose name the bags will be under before you checkin, as that is the person who has to continue to Dublin if they won’t short check you. How you get back from Dublin is a different question.

BA WILL punish you if you skip legs multiple times. As a one off, its not an issue.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

The agent shouldn’t have told you that because it’s actually against the conditionsl of carriage.

As Rob said you should have done the last leg from City (or LGW if you fancied EI in economy and lower TPs) as they would have to give you your bags at LHR.

The last leg should also really be for the day after you land in the UK which is how I book mine.

in the case of irrops on that last DFW-LHR-DUB flights they can reroute you to DUB via say JFK and you can’t really refuse that because DUB is the ticketted end of your trip not LHR.

BTW the bags under one person is a good idea but the number of bags still needs to be within the individual baggage allowance othwwise they can charge for being over the limit.

[matt6099]

Thank you. I too was surprised they suggested this. Thanks to this forum for having a place to discuss these issue. Your advice as been helpful and as you both pointed out use LCY in future

[dougzz99]

You may get lucky, but in my experience you’ll never get bags short checked in the USA, they’re more acutely aware of dropping the last leg than many European agents. You could feel unwell in London and unable to continue, and ask for your bags to be returned at LHR, but it’ll take ages (as in several hours typically) and for 4 of you may bring unwanted attention about what’s going on. I’d nominate two to check-in baggage and do the Dublin hop, and two to head home from London. As has been said the LCY trick is the way to go.
As an aside £1900 each from DUB to Orlando isn’t that great. Also with timing/route, next time check the AA direct flight to PHL from DUB, something like DUB-PHL-MCO-MIA-LHR/LCY-DUB is a nice option with timing and Pre-Clearance in Dublin. If you all have Global Entry Pre-Clearance doesn’t matter as much. I’d never choose to change in Chicago.

[zapato1060]

I have a SJU-MIA-LHR-AMS. I will be leaving in LHR but of course im doing this with hand luggage.