WalterSFO

I was on United from ORD to SFO last week. When I was standing at baggage claim, I counted more than 92 bags, all with priority tags. There could have been more, but mine was #92(also with priority tag) that came out. I picked it up and left. On an elite-heavy hub-to-hub flight, it's almost useless. I was #104 on the upgrade standby list .(Boeing 777)

FrancisA

BA does not offer priority luggage based on status even to GGL. It is purely a cabin benefit. No idea why the OP felt entitled to this.

I personally would prefer BA to get priority luggage sorted for those entitled to it and not dish out tags to those who are not.

However, as things stand, priority tags are just snob tags; they make little difference at airports with containerised luggage at either end of the route.

craigthemif

+1. A priority tag is meaningless in Spain for getting your luggage off first.

I would rather not even have the priority tag, as I consider it a signal to anybody paying attention as I depart any airport that I might have more valuables on me than merely a boring bag of dirty laundry.

umbyboy

The issue is at, unlike AA, BA does not have a priority bin for bags with a priority tag. In other words, your bags are loaded as any other. The only way to make the tag meaningful is to have a system in place which is missing at the moment.

FrancisA

But it does have that system for bar codes, which are very much sorted into separate F and CW containers. Y bags with priority tags don't get into the priority containers.

eefor jfp

If that's true, then BA is pretty much alone in the world in not granting priority baggage delivery to their elites. And I would say this needs to change and they need to get their act together to deliver priority bags first.

Last time I flew SkyTeam in Biz and every time I flew them as an elite for six years they got my bags off first and it saved time and aggravation. Arriving into LAX from Paris I would be off the plane, through immigration and out the door with my luggage in under fifteen minutes which is outstanding and something I have NEVER even come close to on BA arriving in the US or anywhere in the world. Star wasn't as good as SkyTeam but they were a lot better than BA. For those of us not based in London, every little bit helps or hurts in choosing an airline.

jday

Very surprised they did it. You don't get priority tags because of status on BA. Only by cabin.

Not that it makes much difference as people say.

SeattleDavid

I flew LHR-SJC the other day and bags were very slow arriving in SJC (about 35 minutes after we left the plane before the belts were even moving) and there was no relation between priority tag and bag arrival on the belt, or between fare class and bag arrival (I was standing next to a guy in paid F and his bags were among the last to arrive - but he had connected in LHR and so maybe nothing was encoded in his tags?).

All told, it does seem that Priority tags frequently mean very little (though I must add that they often do work well for me).

jerry a. laska

As noted by FrancisA, BA does not provide priority baggage handling and when priority baggage handling was adopted by oneworld for elites BA operated flights were specifically excepted from this benefit.
From oneworld.com:
See also:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...gs-matter.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...-emeralds.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...g-economy.html

studio76

CX has a habit of re tagging bags - and it works.

studio76

many airlines can sort this. BA just choose to be inept in this regard. Flown BA F many times with no baggage priority. The company is lazy and complacent. Not sure why you hate status holders, but the company is unwilling to do this for anyone including those paying F fares. Not snob tags at all. Plenty of companies with containerised luggage do this every day on hundreds of flights. BA just does not care. Vote with your wallet.

HIDDY

Maybe if they made status harder to get this 'problem' would go away? I wouldn't be at all surprsied if on certain flights over 50% of passengers with checked bags expect their luggage to arrive first on the belt.

Beltway2A

First seems like overkill. Arriving on the belt before non-priority luggage seems like a reasonable expectation, albeit one which isn't currently being met.

FrancisA

Yes, but they have no right to that expectation unless they are flying in CW or F. Even CE officially does not offer priority luggage.

It seems to me that BA do everything right at the point of departure - bar code to indicate priority (priority tag for those who like that sort of thing), separate container for premium cabins. Where it goes wrong is at the point of arrival. Either baggage handlers are not informed which is the priority container or they just ignore this.

The real question is why does this happen? Are the baggage handlers ignoring something that is written into the contract with BA and BA are failing to enforce those terms and get what they are entitled to. If BA are paying, this may explain reluctance to offer this as a status benefit, just as fast track is often limited where BA pay a high cost per passenger.

The alternative is that outside LHR and LGW, BA does not pay for priority handling or only pays at selected airports on key routes.

From my experience it does tend to work for CW and F most of the time at LHR and LGW. At other airports it is hit and miss, meaning that when it does apparently work, it could be the luck of the draw.

I personally think BA have a lot to do in this area to get the current system working as it should and maybe rolling it out to CE, before they even think of offering it as a status benefit. Indeed on many flights, particularly ex-LCY where status passengers are numerous, most of the hold would be priority luggage, rendering this pretty pointless.

CKBA

An annoying trait at IAD (Washington-Dulles) is that the baggage handlers will remove any priority bags from the belt and line (herd?) them up: on the one hand the bags tend to be at the closer end of the belt when you come out, but it is not always obvious that this is where your bags are!