And of course it's made doubly worse by those airlines who charge extra for hold luggage as it means passengers try and take larger and larger cases on board.

200+ pages and 3000+ posts; there's bound to be at least one or two stories:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...a-stories.html

which begs the question, is the abbreviation for Don't you [...] or Do you [...]? I always thought Don't.

Hammer-nail head-hit.

You beat me to it Matthew.

Spot on, IMHO.

With some of these posts seeming to make the point that using your EC luggage tags is somehow bad form, I'm starting to wonder what these things are for anyway. Personally, I've been putting them on checked luggage because I was under the impression it gets them on the baggage claim belt more quickly. I agree there's really no point to putting them on carry-on luggage, but am I wrong in assuming they give checked bags priority treatment?

I do not think they are for priority baggage handling, but rather for identification of the bag.

Some people put them on their carry-on luggage for identification in case it has to be checked or in case there are similar bags in the overhead locker.

I was told that the only tag that mattered was the one with the bar code (as that contained the necessary data) and that the baggage handlers just ignored any other tags.

Extra tags such as 'short connection' and 'priority' were only put on bags for 'theatre' and to comfort passengers that their bag was somehow 'special'

I remember some loyalty programmes used to give the impression these tags would speed up your luggage on arrival but mechanisation soon put an end to that.....by chewing them to bits.

Since we're on the subject of baggage, I thought I would throw my story into the hat...

Not too long ago, I was flying from a regional US airport on AA for my TATL BA connection. When I get to check-in, it turns out that my bag is on the heavier side of 23-32kg range and AA's agent says that I should either fork out approx. $100 extra for a heavy bag charge or to split it into 2. I politely enquired whether me being Sapphire would allow for a heavy bag charge to be waived. She said that not even AA's Exec Plats (OW Emerald/BA Gold) are allowed an extra heavy bag, so she was not about to budge for me. Not even saying that I flew in with a heavier bag and last time I flew out from that airport my bag was heavier too and it was fine was not helping.

Then, in a sudden "Eureka" moment, I remembered that if any of the legs are operated by BA then the higher baggage allowance applies irrespective of what other OW carriers normally permit. At this point, a colleague of the agent was becoming interested in what was going on (it was a quiet day, apparently). When I mentioned the above to her (colleague), she had a look on the website and pointed the other agent to the screen saying "Look, he's right!". A quick show of my Silver card later and my bag was checked in and I was on my way.

Moral of the story: one should never hesitate to pull rank when they feel they are being short-changed.

To be precise:

"If your journey includes connecting flights with more than one airline, the checked baggage policy of the airline that operates the longer leg will apply."
-ba.com

So in this case if presumably you were flying AA domestic and connecting to the BA TATL flight the latter would be the longer leg and hence that sector's checked baggage policy would apply to the whole journey. :)

You were entitled to the higher baggage allowance irrespective of your FF status, so why the need 'to pull rank'? I thought that this thread is used to lampoon others rather than to confess to our own DYKWIA moments. :confused:

Good grief, that's a tad harsh.

I read TEX277's comment to suggest that techie WASN'T pulling rank - he was simply expecting that which he was entiled to. As such he wasn't really DYKWIAing.

They exist only to assuage the ego of the person to whom they belong. Or not, as the case may be.

No, no - the more the merrier, I say! I quite like the posts on this thread where people share their own DYKWIA moments, usually in response to witnessing another.

That said, not sure the person you were responding to was in a DYKWIA moment - I take 'pull rank' to be more of a turn of phrase than taking actual pleasure from the situation.

This thread reminded me of a recent incident with my parents at Manchester Airport. It's certainly not a DYKWIA moment but kind of related. I've recently gotten my parents into the world of Avios collecting. Long time debit card users I've recently persuaded them to signup for AMEX Gold and SPG to collect signup bonuses and points for their daily spend. As part of this they've had to signup for the BAEC and received their little Blue card in the post. They were recently on the way to the Algarve for a few nights to celebrate their anniversary. Their flights weren't with BA (they're relatively new to the Avios habit) and they were flying from T3 at Manchester. I got a frantic phone call from my Mum - "JonJParr, I'm so annoyed that we forgot our card as there's a British Airways lounge here that we could have used."

I had to point that 1) they were flying with Ryanair so they wouldn't be able to use the lounge and 2) that their Blue card was just a reminder of their BAEC account number and wouldn't get them access to the lounge anyway unless they were travelling in a premium cabin. It was met with, "But we're part of the Executive Club and we've got a Lounge Club card with our American Express". It doesn't matter Mum - that's not how it works.

At least I saved them some embarrassment.