None priority baggage in business
 

We recently flew form St Croix -Miami-London in Business on AA then First on BA on a BA ticket

At check in St Criox the CIA refused to tag our bags with Priority as there were no comments in the system.

Despite her seeing we were in both Business and in First and I am a Silver BA member - she could see that but the system would not allow her to tag the bags with a priority tag.

I know its no third world problem - but why did this happen?

Doing the same journey again in December - anything I need to do in advance - had to wait ages for baggage in LHR

What do you mean by "no comments in the system"? It's usually based on your elite status or booking class, not manual comments. And, it's usually just a tag that's added to the bag tag manually by the agent.

That said, I've found BA to not do anything with the priority tags the few times I've had to check a bag on BA. Even with the priority tags, I've waited long than many economy passengers.

She said she was not allowed as there no comments in the system. I found her rude - i get its a manual process - i did point that one out to her - showing her my ticket and card - but she was having none of it

BA uses containerized luggage and a separate business/first class container. They also do not guarantee priority bag delivery for ANY frequent flyers, only J and F passengers. Because of this, the barcode matters much more than the tag -- BA should pick up on the fact that you are in F and load your bag into the correct container, time-permitting.

The airline for the last segment has control over bag delivery, and in this case apparently BA's computers did not instruct AA's computers to put a priority tag on your bag. I do think that the AA check-in agent could have been more accommodating and put an orange tag on your bag anyway, but it would not have mattered.

OP, was your luggage considered heavy? I recently started a trip that had me on AA then BA and the agent informed me that she couldn't add the priority tag on my bag because it was 51 lbs. on the return, after I delivered gifts accordingly and didn't acquire new item to pack, I received a priority tag by BA at check-in.

May it all just depends, as mentioned already, it's a class of service issue and the last carrier issue protocol. Since, my bag was heavy, it didn't matter if a priority tag was on it since it was going into the J bin out bound. But for the inbound, AA would like it tagged for priority delivery even though it's in the J bin already.

It's all down to the barcode. The bright flag usually means nothing, other than a brag tag.

OP, you do realize those tags are really for bragging rights..

Not even that. They are meant to make you feel ever so special when you are not.

This is true even on AA which generally is not containerized.

Your baggage probably came out before all the "Priority" tagged bags