Originally Posted by
Fritz
SEA has the reputation for having the rudest and most ornery immigration staff in North America. If you have any reason to think they might find your wish to enter the USA questionable, then I'd certainly build in some slack and go for the 2100hrs. Otherwise, I'd also think you'd be OK with the 2000hrs, especially given the jet-lag factor. But it's a close call IMHO
I'm glad to hear they weren't just gunning for me then.
I allowed 3 hours for a connection to PDX (there was a 2 hour connection available) and was very glad I did when I was singled out for secondary (which took 5 minutes - but they kept me waiting for 20) and SO was selected to have his luggage inspected which took a good half hour as every single item (including the contents of all the F BAgs) was inspected .
This is pretty much the worst case scenario and extremely unlikely to happen to the OP I believe. (We had newish passports - from a country with dodgy passports - and brand new visas, and had just come from Turkey, etc.). So the bottom line is 3 hours should be fine barring the unforeseeable like a badly delayed arrival.
I should add that we were in F and got to immigration before any queue developed. This at least gave us a head start for all the subsequent obstacles.
Originally Posted by
chucko
You'll be fine with the earlier booking. I don't know if BA will check any luggage through on a separate ticket, but the AS/QX counters aren't that busy in the evening if you have to re-check any bags after clearing immigration and customs. Lines at security aren't too bad at that hour, either.
Even if BA check your luggage through you have to clear customs at SEA. Then there are check-in counters just past customs to re-check your luggage. If they don't check them through, you put them on a belt and catch up with them in the main terminal (or schlep them with you on the train if you prefer) where you will have to re-check. We did the latter as our connection was with UA.