dakaix

First and foremost, I freely admit this is a minor gripe... but hey this is FlyerTalk, since when did that matter?!

Yesterday I flew out of LHR in ET with my OW Sapphire number in the booking, and I checked in and dropped my bag using a CW desk. The agent didn't priority tag my bag, and when I asked why I was told that apparently Oneworld members aren't eligible for them.

When I asked him to explain that, the agent's response was that "We have 37 SCH and GCH on your flight, we don't have space in the Priority bin to include Oneworld cases as well".



I let this go at the time, but have since reached out to BA Cust Svcs who replied saying much the same thing:

"As our staff informed you, we offer priority tagging only for our Silver and Gold Executive Club members, and passengers travelling in Club Europe or World."

Given that the Oneworld site still lists this as a benefit, are both agent's wrong or is this just another BA "enhancement"?

HarryKUK

I thought the footer at the bottom said 'excluding BA' ?

MPH1980

dakaix

Thanks for the quick replies! I'd been checking from the page below, where they've not listed any exclusions (as well as a typo in the spelling of Priority )

https://www.oneworld.com/ffp/my-onew...-platinum#tier

Ah well, you live and learn...

scottishpoet

TBH even for BA card holders the "priority bag" situation is a bit hit or miss.

MPH1980

Check here:

https://www.oneworld.com/ffp/emerald-privileges

or here:

https://www.oneworld.com/ffp/sapphire-privileges

Virazuno

Don't worry - the tags wouldn't have achieved much anyway!

dylanks

The priority bag tags are pretty meaningless. There's really no guarantee at all that a priority bag will arrive first on the carousel. AA is far more reliable (but not perfect) in delivering priority bags first than BA is.

andox

My experience as an OWE has always been no priority tags on BA when in Y, but my mother (OWS) was on 216 and 217 (IAD-LHR-IAD) last week and received them in both directions flying in World Traveller. I asked, and she said that she checked in at the Club desks. So, YMMV despite the policy.

MPH1980

Doesn't actually change anything though - the priority coding (especially at heathrow) is coded into the barcode on the main tag.

It might help at outstations depending on how advanced their handling systems are.

rossmacd

BA priority bag tags are a waste of good trees.

Globaliser

Was this at T5? If so, AIUI a priority tag would have achieved nothing anyway. The sorting is done automatically by the information retrieved via the bar code. A priority tag may be useful if a human is identifying the bags that need to go into the priority bin, but that is not how it works at T5.

So it's often said that at T5 the primary function of a priority tag is to stop the passenger asking for a priority tag.

I don't know what the current state of play is at T3.

Flier74

Came across this very topic in the BA Hhighlife magazine.
It clearly stares that priority baggage delivery is NOT available onl British Airways flight for Sapphire or Emerald Card holders.
So officially this only leaves it to Club and FIRST Customers, however I have mixed experiences with that too.

Rami Tamimi

I am curious,what is the justification/excuse for this?

srbrenna

It's time for the priority tags to be enhanced. They rarely work. When the priority bags do actually arrive first I just assume it is pure chance.