Question about international travel, checked baggage and layover
 

Hi all,
I'll be traveling international for the first time in years and would like some help with what the procedures are for checked baggage/overnight layovers.

My first leg is DC to Miami in evening, an overnight stay in Miami, and a morning flight from Miami to St. Lucia. Will I be able to retrieve my checked bags at Miami and start the custom process in the morning, or do I need to go through customs in DC and have them sent along to St. Lucia?

Thanks for your help!

you should be able to check the bags thru & not see customs/immig til st lucia & on the return iirc.....

what airline?...

good luck...

American. I'd actually rather pick up the bag in MIA since we'll be grabbing a hotel room that night. I could just pack a change of clothes on carry-on though if bags go all the way. Thanks!

Personally, I'd just pack enough for the night's stay in Miami in carryon and check the larger stuff through.

If you get charged for bags, you will get charged twice if you pick them up in MIA. If you're staying in MIA for more than 24 hrs, you will have to pick them up. The only customs/immigration you'll see on the outbound is in Santa Lucia. On the way back if there are exit controls then you'll have to go through those and then you'll have to pick up your bags and go through customs at your first point of entry into the US (probably MIA).

How long is your layover in Miami on the outbound? If it is 12 hours or more, then American will not hold the bags overnight, sometimes even less than that - it's programmed into their computer system.

1. The US does not enforce outbound Customs (as a general matter). You will go through Customs upon arrival in St. Lucia and then at your US port of entry on return.

As to your MIA stop-over, all depends how this is ticketed. AA will not "short check" a bag if this is a DC to St. Lucia flight. On the other hand, AA will not hold bags over a certain period of time. You should call AA well in advance. To the extent you can avoid pickup and recheck, I would do that and take a carry-on for the overnight in MIA. Checked bag charges can add up.

What about for flights coming into US?
 

I was going to open a new thread but I think this is titled generic enough to ask this question:

What about for flights coming into MIA late at night with a morning connection? After clearing customs with the checked baggage, will they allow me to drop them off to my final destination or do I have to check in with bags in the following morning even if it's a connection?

To be more specific, I'll be flying in on LAN into MIA late at night and fly on AA to another uS destination the following early morning. I'm thinking the delta time between the two will be less than 10 hours. Do we have to take our checked bags after customs and bring them back in the morning or can we drop them off to be processed for the morning flight? Thanks in advance!

I can not speak for AA, but with UA, if you have the first flight in the morning to your destination, they will take your bags the previous night.