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I have a HND-LHR-MAD flight that has suffered a schedule change.
The initial plan was:
Day 1: HND-LHR-MAD (JL/IB) … arrive to MAD, spend night at hotel
Day 2: wake up and calmly board MAD-LHR (IB)For same reason I may now find myself on the following:
Day 1: Still in Japan no flight that day
Day 2: HND-LHR-MAD (JL/IB) … pick up luggage check it again and then do MAD-LHR (IB)I would have ~3hr which should be enough but it would be better if I was able to simply send the luggage directly to LHR (even if I do need to do the LHR-MAD-LHR leg because airlines sometimes don’t like it if you break the original fare)
So questions:
1) Would JAL allow me to send the luggage to LHR and leave there (missing the LHR-MAD leg)?
2) If I need to do the LHR-MAD-LHR crazy back and forth. Could I ask JAL to interline the luggage so it goes to the IB flight without me having to pick it up and checking it again?Thanks!
I doubt they’ll short check it on a short connection. If HND-LHR is delayed 2hrs you won’t have time to get the bag and get back to the LHR-MAD flight for example.
If it’s a schedule change then try get an overnight connection or onto LGW-MAD so you’ve got reason to get the bag back. If it’s a one off occasion and you don’t want the points then just don’t fly to MAD
They can’t tag the bag via LHR to LHR so that won’t work either. Another option is to try get a routing via a different point e.g. Frankfurt or Paris
@yonasi – you ask about missing a leg. Skiplagging as they call it in the US is a hot issue there right now with United charging people and closing FF accounts plus American not only charging pax the correct fare for the flights actually used but also suing a site called ‘Skiplagged’ who specialise in these itineraries. It will inevitably draw attention to the issue here as it annoys airlines considerably, so maybe best avoided for now.
A hot issue in the US (as it has been for some time), albeit I’ve not seen any reports of widespread charging of “correct” fares to passengers. I’d be surprised if they could actually do that, otherwise they would already be doing it if they want to stop it. The only time it’s come up in the UK was a few years ago when a travel agent was charged by BA after multiple passengers missed the last leg.
If you do it repeatedly on BA itineraries then there is a theoretical chance they may go after you (more if you have a BAEC account), but that has never happened so far. There is a higher chance they go after your travel agent if you use one. If you are doing it on a different airline that doesn’t apply. If you do it once, or occasionally you’re safe.
Probably best not to do it routinely, but I wouldn’t worry at all about a one-off on an airline you don’t have a FF account with.
You are probably not going to be able to collect luggage and re-check it. You will definitely not be able to check your luggage through – it can’t go through the same airport twice. No idea on JL’s views on short checking luggage, but I doubt that’s something that can be relied on.
Can you go hand baggage only? Can you change flights because of the schedule change, either to get you to MAD earlier or to allow a throwaway last leg? Can you change or replace the return from MAD with a later flight?
DOI have once inexplicably failed to get from LHR to LCY for a flight to Dublin after arriving from the USA
@Matt – try putting ‘skiplagging’ into Apple News. There has been extensive coverage in the last few weeks and the suit by AA has brought out all sorts of stories of people being charged some of which seem to have reached the UK in the Independent and Guardian.
Just to be clear. The plan was never to cut the trip short. That is why on Day 1 we were flying to Madrid and then on Day 2 coming back to London.
There are some articles, though not that many. Notably from the Independent article:
“United Airlines actually sued a website dedicated to helping travelers find better skiplagging deals, but ultimately lost. Lufthansa went so far as to sue a passenger who skiplagged, claiming the customer should have paid £2,769, but instead bought a £600 ticket and disembarked early. A German court ultimately ruled in the traveller’s favour.”
The UK articles are largely either “what is Skiplagging?” or mentioning the recent lawsuit against the website. I can’t say you’ve changed my mind from what I wrote earlier – it isn’t zero risk, but as a one-off on an airline you don’t have a FF account with it’s pretty close to it.
JL will interline HND-LHR-MAD as that is what your ticket says.
But they won’t interline to your MAD-LHR flight as it’s not possible to have the same airport on the same set of tags twice.
Can we leave the skipplagging issue to a separate thread?
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