Originally Posted by ElizaB

Hello! I am new here and trying to find out how strictly BA enforces carry on in business class on international flights. Last year, my family of four and I flew roundtrip to Edinburgh through Heathrow from Houston. We all had our appropriate size 1 carry on and 1 personal item. We only checked one piece of luggage. On the way over there, I had to go through customs and security at Heathrow to pick up and then re-check it for Edinburgh. It was a nightmare! I nearly missed my connecting flight even though I had 3 hours between flights. First, the plane was an hour late and then customs/security had ridiculously long lines unlike anything I had seen before. Then, on the way back, they lost our 1 piece of checked luggage. They also lost some of our friend's golf clubs and lost cameras of a sports reporting crew that was also on our flight. I later saw that the problem was in Edinburgh...apparently all of the golf bags from The Open broke the conveyor belt in Edinburgh.

This year, my family and I are going to Barcelona through Heathrow from Houston. I want to prevent the problems we had last year at Heathrow and hope to be able to fly with "carry on" only. The problem is, we will be in Europe for three weeks. I am pretty good at packing efficiently, but even so I feel like that for our family of four we may need 1 or 2 extra personal item bags. I found previously that it seemed like BA was not enforcing the 1 carry on/1 personal item...at least not in business or first. I even saw a woman in business get on with a huge painting on one of our flights. HUGE. It was nowhere close to being within the restrictions. I also saw people boarding with two carry ons and/oe multiple personal items...and nothing was said to them at all. What has your experience been? I hate to try to bend the rules, but I also really don't want my luggage lost again or have to go through customs and security at Heathrow and then do it again in Barcelona. We will be going on a cruise this year from Barcelona so if our luggage is lost, it will be bad as we will not be able to have them deliver it later to Barcelons because we will be on a ship.