Modo

Who can use Fast Track

Non EU passport holders. Theoretically as EU holder you will normally be quicker staying in the EU lines than using Fast Track. That said our experience in the early morning rush hour at T3 and sometimes at T5 - my Filipino wife gets through significantly quicker than me as U.K. Passport holder!

Who qualifies

Unless things have changed Silver and above in any cabin.

Theoretically a status EU passport holder can pass a voucher to another passenger on the same PNR. In practice my experience with BA and CX is if you ask politely and have been good you will get a voucher even if not on the same PNR even if travelling in Y.

Are they worthwhile for non EU passport holders

IME massively

Are there workarounds.

Interline through Heathrow to another U.K. Airport. The queues IME have been tiny through flight transfer to clear U.K. Immigration at those entry points in the early morning peak.

Note there is no inbound Fast Track at MAN - not sure of other regionals. At MAN if the early morning flights from Emirates and CX come in adjacently non EU nationals need to run fast. LOL

KARFA

Do you mean connect through LHR to another UK airport? You would still do immigration at LHR even if connecting onwards on a domestic flight.

Skyline

I concur - the line for non-fast track often looks quicker - on the occasions I have used fast-track, there has only been one kiosk open with the line line moving slowly. I did notice a DYKWIA moment when someone asked the person montiroing fast-track to ask for more Border Control staff as they had an important meeting in London! Of course, nothing happened!

Modo

But must be a through ticket to start with unless you can persuade them to join your booking. That is a separate subject - but whispering .. we have been 100% successful asking at check in using CX ex Asian airports with the final U.K. Flight originating ex HKG.

That said it is usually a J Avios redemption in to HKG then a Y revenue ticket to MAN via LHR.

KARFA

I don't understand what you are going on about with connecting tickets? Are you now talking about checking luggage through?

Let me make this clear - whether you do or do not have checked bags, and whether the domestic flight was on the same ticket or a separate ticket - you would still do immigration at LHR if you arrive on an international flight and then depart on a domestic flight - there is no scenario when doing INT-DOM which would involve you not doing immigration at LHR and instead doing it at the DOM airport.

On arrival at the domestic airport you just walk out as a domestic arrival.

I realise you are mentioning regional airports in relation to direct international flights that land there (e.g. CX to MAN, EK to MAN/NCL etc.) however I don't see the relevance to this topic which relates to arriving at LHR.

Jagboi

Just about every time I've used fast track at T5 I look for someone with a distinctive piece of clothing who enters the regular line at the same time as me. 90% of the time they will get through faster than me, so I've started just going through the regular line.

Noppasit

My friend who was travelling from T5 on Saturday has kindly asked five different BA ground agents, they said the same thing which is if you have a valid boarding pass (F, J, GCH, SCH including Iberia) then you can use the immigration fast track (as long as they do not have EU/ECC/UK pass) AT T5 ONLY. At T3 as it is served by many airlines therefore it is not possible to show a boarding pass (so voucher is required at T3). I think this case is closed.

navylad

Iberia's twitter team have told me today, having gone away to ask the question internally, that their customers are not provided with a fast track voucher and they don't pay BAA for their non-EU passengers to use fast track immigration.

Noppasit

Are you sure? BA ground agents told him that if a customer present a valid boarding pass (F, J, GCH, SCH including Iberia J) then the fast track access is granted.

scottishpoet

It could well be that Iberia do not provide a voucher, not pay BAA (or even HAL), but it could be that, just to save the hassle of putting a process in place, then anyone presenting a valid boarding pas as you described gets access.

In a similar vain, I know that the fast track machine that checks your boarding pass at many airport terminals with multiple carriers will accept ANY valid boarding pass as it would cost too much to code the machine for all the variety of acceptable boarding passes. The security staff assume that as the machine let you through you are ok. So lots of it is done on "trust".

So despite the rules, when cost is prohibitive, you can sometimes get the access. I can see its easier at T5 just to let everyone with J F and GCH SCH through. in percentage terms the number of people who should not get access but do will be very small.

scubaccr

My last T3 arrival 21st May was 07:30 AA Business Class 777 MIA-LHR (continuation was BA T5 LHR-CAI 10hrs later)... luggage through checked MIA-LHR-CAI

No fasttrak cards given out , and with lengthy 10hours layover, I exited T3 via immigration fasttak showing my J Bpass , so I could to use AA T3 arrivals lounge

And before someone says something in rrply, yes fastrak immigration may be treated differently to fastrak transfer .....

However did late April J-class BA CAI-LHR (T5) / T3 BA(LHR-MIA), no fastrak cards given out on leg CAI-LHR, but after taking airside transfer bus T5-T3, in T3 i used fastrak transfer channel by showing my arrival BA J BPass & departing J-class BPass

In summary used both T3 transfer/immigration fastrak's during Apr17/May17 with Business Bpasses, despite expectation a fastrak-card from arriving airline is needed and I might be refused

BA6501

This is exactly what I told you in the IB forum a few weeks ago... as you say though, case closed.

chazman189

BA pay for it. I got threatened with arrest once for having an argument about this

Noppasit

Please see wiki for summary.