Aus_Mal

This morning I received my boarding pass via email 6 hours before my Ex LHR EU flight with the advice.

Dear Customer,

We have completed check-in for you, so all you need to do now is print the attached boarding pass.

I didn't check in. Someone/an automated process at BA checked me in.

Means I lose the chance to change seat at the airport and flexibility options for the ticket are reduced.

Has anyone else seen this? It's a first for me.

cbagent

LHR auto check in trial..for selected flights from T5..passengers who have not checked in by 6hrs before departure will be checked in automatically by BA system and B pass will be emailed to them.

orbitmic

Sounds like the dreaded air France auto check in. I think other airlines do the same now. Was it a hbo fare I which case you were not supposed to have a chance to change seats anyway (the machine is just a loophole).

LionRed

As I understand it you can call and ask to be 'off-loaded', then you can complete OLCI yourself.

Aus_Mal

Cheap economy. Not HBO. Quite annoyed really. That coupled with the checkin stafer claiming they couldn't check my bag through to my final destination (separate ticket but OW airline) really is annoying.

Aus_Mal

But why should I have to, so that I can use the flexibility built into my ticket re changing seat at airport checkin via kiosks? Also makes refunding tickets more difficult if I don't want to fly.

rjn21

If the connection is MCT compliant, BA's openly published policy is to through check bags on separate tickets, BA to OW.

Only if you feel like it, you could inform customer services of the error, in the hope that the policy is correctly followed in the future.

Out of interest, and if you don't mind, where was the connection and to which OW?

Smid

So whats the disadvantage of this really? I assume with me, without a printer to hand, I can just walk up to the check in desk and get a printout of the boarding pass? Can those change my seat for me?

Was it Shorthaul or Longhaul?

KARFA

Just to add for reference here is the relevant published policy on ba.com stating BA will check through bags on to a separate ticket as long as the connecting flight is on BA or other oneworld carrier.

http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/...on/checking-in

See under "Checking in baggage"

Aus_Mal

You haven't read my comments. Please go through my posts again.

corporate-wage-slave

I've not seen this yet, I'm not one to OLCI at the first opportunity so I'll doubtless get it at some point. But I wonder if there is a workaround: if you OLCI upfront, but do not print the boarding pass, the system will have you as checked in and the SSCI machines will still allow you to move elsewhere. By "print", I also mean App BP Download, Save, Fax and Email as well.

Now it may be that they will email the BP anyway, so that workaround won't work, but my suspicion is the test is simply "checked in, yes or no".

The overwhelming reason for not through checking luggage is inability to find the flight details on their computer. If you have a post it note with the flight number, routing, ticket number, your name and locator, that should normally be OK. The baggage system is fairly dumb but if you have those details the agent should be happy to enter them in anyway, regardless of their DCS system limitations. The second most common reason for refusal is if the connection is either below MCT or believed to be so.

zkzkz

Why for for does having the boarding pass printed prevent you from changing seats at the airport? I'm not sure I've done it on BA but certainly I've changed seats at kiosks, checkin desks, and even gates on other airlines, never a problem.

the main problem I see is that there won't be many seats left if they've checked everyone in already. In fact surely the last minute business purchasers must be crying bloody murder over this.

corporate-wage-slave

Definitely doesn't work on SSCI on BA, I'm afraid, if you have printed (etc). There aren't that many SSCI machines around now either, a lot of places don't have them (list in the HBO thread). You can of course get your seat changed at the desk / lounge, but without access to the seating plan that would be less than an optimum solution.

Ldnn1

Sounds very annoying. It may help the casual holidaymaker who doesn’t have constant internet access, but comes with a fair amount of collateral damage for those of us who like to have control of our bookings.

sammyg901

Seems a bit odd to me, surely all these people need offloading if they no show? You'd think for flight management / clearing standby etc it'd be better to have a more accurate prediction of likely no shows. Also if you didn't have Internet access to check in you probably don't have anyway to print a boarding pass 6 hrs prior....

I know easyjet etc allow boarding pass printing way in advance, but their operation is a lot more simple

For me personally would be annoying on a route like AMS where I might not check in if my day starts running late and I need to do change to a later flight, would have to call and get them to get me offloaded to make a change as the current IT stands