Originally Posted by
saaveraward
can UA hire you in some capacity?
I tried explaining that with no luck. Thank you for the good advice.
I was just nervous the bag would get kicked out of the system and they'd make me go back to the curb to pay $25 and re-check and had no clue if they could take funds at midfield. Your explanation has been very helpful.
Happy to help. I don't think UA would pay what I'd charge.
Kidding aside, UA actually has an internal help desk staffed with people who know these rules much better than I ever will. The problem is that many of the front-line support people don't engage with them, either because they don't understand the question, mistakenly believe that they know the answer already and don't need help, or just don't care.
Anyway, as long as your bags are tagged all the way through, you'll be fine. If they're only tagged to IAD, that's when you'd potentially have a problem.
Having said all of that, there is one further thing I should point out. I'm not at all convinced you'll be at the midfield terminal in the first place. I believe only connecting passengers from *A flights are processed there. I think all other passengers will go through the International Arrivals Building in the main terminal. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong (although the threads I've reviewed from the mid-atlantic forum seem to match my suspicion). This shouldn't change anything about whether or not you have to pay UA, but at least you'd be in the right place to do so if it were required... For example, this thread seemed to be updated fairly recently:
IAD international to domestic transfer question