Priority tags or barcodes on BA have never, ever worked for me. I really do think that handlers take a perverse pleasure in keeping back such tagged bags to teach people their "place"!

But I will never forget a domestic flight with American where I had priority tagged bags. I stood by the carousel for about half an hour before the bags started coming out, and watched for another 10 minutes as bag after bag after bag came along, and with a rising sense of panic as I realised that ours weren't amongst them. Muttering abusively (what a great start to our holiday, we'll never see them again, bet someone's nicked them, etc) I eventually turned to find the lost luggage office....and promptly almost tripped over our bags. Priority bags had somehow been offloaded separately and taken into the baggage hall where they were put in a little pile on their own. They'd obviously been there for ages. We felt very stupid.

Next time I took a domestic flight, I was ready....and although it couldn't have been more than 5 minutes between landing and me being in reclaim, the priority bags were already there in their little separate pile. It was like the story of the elves and the shoemaker.

If only this happened at Heathrow.