Originally Posted by
miikkak
Throughchecking to final destination with separate IB tickets doesn't work. The last time I tried to do it, I was told that the system doesn't permit it (more likely employees don't know how to do it) and I'm not the only one in FT with similar experience. If you have to get your luggage from the belt, two hour connection is very risky as IB baggage handling at MAD is very slow. Quite often priority bags arrive 40 minutes after arrival at MAD...
Originally Posted by
linglingfool
Just to reiterate from my recent experience: through-checking a bag can be difficult on multiple IB tickets. I was informed this past weekend that since I had already checked in for my onward segment, they could not tag the bag through, and they could not figure out how to undo the check-in. I'm not sure if that was really the case, but the employee (a contractor at an outstation) seemed knowledgeable enough and tried for at least 10 minutes to force it though.
Did you call to associate the two bookings in advance? I have a similar situation coming up - nested a ticket to London into the stopover on my return - TLV-MAD-JFK-MAD//MAD-LHR-MAD//MAD-TLV.
Before I booked, I checked I was within the MCTs and called IB to confirm that not only would they be fine with checking through my bags to and from London, but that my connection would be protected. They absolutely assured me that both would be fine as I had called and the two bookings had been associated with each other. I'm not sure if being OWE (BA Gold) and on a business ticket made any difference but I doubt it.