Originally Posted by
gingerbiscuit
They are flying later this week JNB-DXB-LHR, all on EK, then LHR-GLA with BA on reward tickets. (Am aware of DXB-GLA, yes, but booking tickets was done elsewhere and it is done now). Party include children under 5 so it will all be trying enough. I understand from past threads that they *may* get their bags checked through to GLA if they are lucky and certainly that would help if it's possible.
If they can, are there any recommendations on how to ensure BA are aware of that so the bags don't get spat out at T5 without their knowledge? One of those threads suggested getting BA boarding pass and making sure bag IDs are associated with that.
If EK will through-check the bags to GLA, then AIUI the system, the bags should be automatically sent by EK to T5 because that is where the bag tag says that the bags need to go. But at T5 BA may not load them onto the flight until the bags (through their tag numbers) have become associated with a BA booking for that flight, so that BA can track whether or not the bags' owners have boarded the flight and therefore whether the bags can fly or might need to be offloaded if the passengers don't show.
Conventionally, I've always taken it for granted that the connection airport (ie LHR) is the appropriate place to do this. Hopefully, they have plenty of time at LHR given that LHR-GLA is on a separate ticket. If so, then I would have thought that the transfer desk in T5 flight connections, or a customer service desk in the T5 airside departures area, would be the place to do that. If they aren't already holding BA BPs when they get to T5, they'd need to go to a transfer desk anyway.