markcwj

Dear FT Members,

Relatively new with airline loyalty programs and was hoping someone could shed some light with my following scenario:

If I have Star Alliance Gold but my traveling partner does not, is it still possible to check it together at a Business Class counter and get priority baggage for the both of us?

HelloKittysMum

I've done this on Emirates. Just check in together.

oliver2002

Yep, no issue to checkin together. If the agent is smart s/he pools your luggage and priority coding applies to both.

dvs7310

If you're on the same itinerary it won't be a problem at all. My companions have always inherited my luggage priority if the agent is paying attention. Even on separate itineraries, I want to say that it goes the same way, but if not then I just put all bags under my own unless we're maxing out our allowance. The times it goes awry is in Japan where they will without fail take the person with the Japanese passport first and start checking luggage to their name before noticing my *G status (NH and JL airport staff both have a terrible habit of avoiding speaking English, so even though I'm the status pax they will completely ignore me the entire check in process if my companion is Japanese... it really pisses me off), so I always have to tell them to put all checked luggage under my name and it solves that part of the problem.

oliver2002

In my case somehow always my wife's name shows up on the tag if we checkin as a family on the same booking. They still add the priority tag, but the status is not coded into the tag, which matters for LH. (The loaders scan each bag before putting in the appropriate bin).

dvs7310

Good point, I've stopped relying on the orange tags myself. I always watch the actual barcode tags after they print them, you can see right beside the barcode it'll say Priority in white with a black rectangular background, so when I've seen that happen recently then I ask them to uncheck it from my companion and recheck it under my name. Since I've been doing that our bags usually come out within a few suitcases of each other. In rare cases I could see they felt it was pointless to do, usually I just say it is for my travel insurance. After that they usually change the name.

I do get tired of training ANA employees though, last week one of their agents at Narita swore to me that both tags were the same since they had the orange tag, I had to explain to her that the barcode didn't have it encoded which means in many airports the orange tag is ignored. Finally I could see the light ding in her eyes and she changed the barcode. Although working the business class counter, she had never realized that priority status us actually on the main barcode tag too... The concept of putting your senior, and best trained employees over premium cabin customers doesn't apply in Japan unfortunately as these types of things are a regular occurrence.

Often1

Depending on carrier and location, the tags themselves may no longer matter and are there just to make people feel special.

The worst that happens is that your priority bag shows up later with the masses. On the other hand, that happens often-enough anyway.

sbm12

Most wouldn't, regardless of how senior they are, as most folks don't know what is encoded in that barcode. Given that the most senior employees have the legacy experience of the tags mattering your gripe about not having the senior employees staffing a particular counter seems quite off to me.

dvs7310

My gripe about junior employees at ANA F and C counters isn't necessarily about the orange tags vs the encoding of the barcode, its really about how unknowledgeable they tend to be (especially about anything that is *A or other interline), completely unempowered, and will stand right in front of me and tell me something is not possible rather than calling in a supervisor who knows how to make it happen... whatever that may be that particular day. Their English also is too frequently inadequate while the senior staff have had more years to work on it. To make matters worse, at NRT and HND many of the other *A airlines are actually staffed by NH employees if they don't have enough flights to justify their own staff here so it's not only flying NH that I have to put up with this... yes it gets frustrating when I'm used to legacy CO and UA staff who (at least used to be) are able to handle about anything on the spot.

I could sit here and make quite an extensive list of all the stuff these junior NH employees have told me is not possible just because they didn't know how to do it and I've only lived here for 6 years. I can't imagine being someone flying out of these airports regularly for decades. I seriously don't think most of my questions and requests are out of the ordinary either, it's just poor training, lack of empowerment, and a mentality that every scenario must be covered in a manual.

markcwj

Thank you for all your replies - it helps a lot and it is certainly interesting to note about the priority baggage tag being embedded within the bar code itself.

Also, just wondering if anyone has any issues bringing a traveling partner during Priority Boarding?

JVPhoto

Did you mention which airlines/route you were flying?

There shouldn't be a problem at all and even less if you have more than 1 bag allowed(i.e. just check both bags under your *G elite ticket).
Data points flying UA LAS-EWR we got CPUd into F on the way there but not the way back so I just checked my friend's bag with mine.
Flying LX NRT-ZRH the check in agent didn't even ask and said that both bags were under my name and put both claim tags on my ticket. Granted my Mother and I were both in J so YMMV.

With priority even on UA they allow people in higher boarding groups to board with their lower group companion). I can't see any other airlines I've regularly flown in *A have a problem with that...except for maybe where they have automated boarding gates you'd need someone to manually override.

dvs7310

If on the same reservation then your companion should automatically inherit your boarding group on airlines that use them. I don't recall ever seeing it different. If you're on different reservations then I always just take my companion's boarding pass, put mine on top and hand them to the gate agent together.

markcwj

Excellent! Thank you for the tips everyone - appreciate it