Virazuno

Hi all,

Long (very long) time lurker...first time poster.

First off - this community is fantastic, I have learnt so much and hope to be able to contribute myself from now on! ^

I am a Bronze. I have a WT+ booking ex-AMS, and am looking to book my positioning flight.

Now, I am aware of the T5 bag drop policy (from 0500 for F, J, Emeralds and Sapphires, 3hrs pre-departure for everyone else). However, I was wondering how flexible this policy is in practice? Ideally, I am looking to drop my bags for the long haul about 4-5 hours pre-departure, do a B2B to AMS, and then take my long haul journey as a straight connection.

Is the 3hr policy very strictly enforced?

I should have just booked CW...

Thanks in advance

corporate-wage-slave

Yes I'm afraid it is, I think it's even system enforced. Whenever you go into the main check-in hall at T5, you will notice a long line of seats at the back, at the drop off side of the hall. Invariably every seat is taken with bags laid out in front. These are largely filled up by rather bored looking people who have attempted to check in before 3 hours and have been told that they can't.

But welcome to Flyertalk Virazuno, welcome to the BA forum, and it's good to see you here. I hope that you will continue to participate here now that you have lost your lurker status.

You have a further problem, incidentally, that it is by no means guaranteed that the agent will accept your bags before your first flight has started. We've had many reports of it being allowed, and a few reports of the agent insisting that the bags can't be onloaded before the first flight.

So you need to have a plan B, which you would have needed anyway, and it could be something like:

- going Hand Baggage Only (if you have lurked here you would have known that was coming!) which shouldn't be too tricky if you are only going away for a few months or less.....
- having a car in an accessible car park where you can retrieve your bags during the connection
- using the baggage storage facility in the Arrivals (chargeable at about Ł10 a bag)
- getting a friend to help you out to meet you during the connection
- changing the flight to CW (no guarantee this works as already noted)
- changing the flight timings so there is an overnight between the AMS-LHR service and LHR-Whereever.
- changing the LHR-AMS service so that you go the night before and can thereby check everything in at AMS in the normal way.

Globaliser

I can't immediately find the answer to this - but is this still the case? I thought that Bronze has access to Club check-in desks, and that anyone who can check-in at the Club desks can early bag drop.

However, it doesn't get around the other potential problem about not being allowed to drop bags for sector 2 before flying sector 1.

corporate-wage-slave

I believe it remains the case. The basic rule seems to be "if lounge access, let 'em in early".

http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/...rt/heathrow-t5

[Bag drop section]

Virazuno

Many thanks for the advice.

Think I will go to AMS super early with my bags, and go landside to start the journey. My long-haul is in the evening so hopefully should have plenty of time to twiddle my thumbs in AMS.