Charged £65 to check in compliant hand luggage
 

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this; if not, I apologise. Here is my tale of woe...

I flew from London City to the Isle of Man a couple of weeks ago, on a hand baggage only fare. When I arrived at City, I was told that I had to pay £65 to check in my suitcase! I was sure this was incorrect, as my suitcase was small enough to go in the cabin, but they insisted that I was only allowed to take handbag-sized items on the flight. (I should say at this point that I also had a laptop with me but this fitted into my suitcase. I explained this to Customer Services but they still insisted that I needed to check the suitcase in.)

I was told I had to pay the £65, leave my suitcase in London or be 'offloaded' from the flight. I was crying with frustration by this point and BA couldn't care less. I was worried I was going to miss my flight so I very reluctantly paid the £65 and wrote on the receipt they asked me to sign: 'paid under protest'.

The lady at the gate couldn't understand it and encouraged me to complain when I landed. I checked my suitcase when I arrived in the Isle of Man and it easily fitted in BA's crate for hand luggage - I took photos to prove this. I contacted them when I returned and - after 10 days' delay - they responded to say that they 'had checked their records and the fee had been correctly charged'. They also said something about 'on busy flights, we may need to put some hand luggage in the hold' but surely that's not what happened here?! The bag was refused at check-in, not at the gate, and the reason given was the size of the bag, not that the flight was full.

I am so angry about this as nobody at BA has given me a good explanation as to why I was charged this fee. Any suggestions about how to proceed from here would be very gratefully received.

I can't think how BA were right to apply this charge. Poor behaviour on the part of the check in agent, by the sound of it. If you have photographic evidence then I would pursue the matter with BA, and ultimately seek to recover the fee though the online small claims route if it comes to that. It does sound distressing to you.

Hi Mingo89,

Welcome to Flyertalk, I am sure you'll receive an official welcome shortly.

Sorry to hear about your issue with cabin baggage, I am under the impression that one item that fits into the bin, and one item such as a handbag or laptop bag is allowed. It does seem a little odd. I assume you tried the usual customer relations route. Perhaps a message on twitter with the picture might help resume a more fruitful conversation with BA to try and get your £65 back. They'll need to follow you so you can send sensitive booking info via direct message.

I would have thought that if the flight is really busy, and they need to gate check in bags that they would not charge for this anyway but don't have a lot of short haul experience.

Welcome to FT Mingo89

Why did you go to the check-in desk if you were travelling hand baggage only? Did you not already have a printed/mobile BP?

I do feel there is an inherent risk of getting 'pinged' at the checkin desk if they see your hand baggage but seem to think it is bigger than allowance.

Poor show overall by BA, however.

Doubly annoying as it's normally the case that BA don't enforce their hand baggage rules on people with obviously oversized and/or multiple bags.
Keep on at them and keep us posted.

Welcome to Flyertalk Mingo89, and welcome to the BA forum. Sorry to hear of this, it certainly doesn't sound right. I hope in addition to watching this thread that you will find this place interesting and that you will feel able to contribute here and elsewhere on Flyertalk.

If you are on an HBO ticket, or basic ticket, and you have 2 bags, both of which conform to the measurements for hand luggage, then you should not have been charged. The smaller bag size is quite tight, so that can be the sticky one. By the sounds of it they also asked you to check in your laptop, that's a treble no-no, since it's not covered by BA or your insurance and there are potential battery / fire issues as well.

If you are determined to get the money back, and your bags were definitely within the size and weight limits (the latter is almost impossible to exceed) then it can be done. At this stage I would get your facts: get the dimensions and any photos. Then either tweet BA or ring Customer Relations on Monday with the details to hand. If that doesn't work then there are legal and other remedies open to you (from MCOL to invoking Section 75 if you paid by a UK credit card and the payment was over £100).

Welcome to Flyertalk and the BA Board Mingo1

Sorry to hear of that in your very first post!

I would certainly escalate it as even though it may not fit onboard the small lockers from LCY it shouldn't have been chargeable and placed in the hold AIUI.

Keep us updated if you can as it's always good to hear of outcomes

This... just flew LHR-GVA yesterday and observed a couple with two roller bags each. Good luck and definitely keep trying. HUACA if necessary.

Thanks for the replies - it's really good to know that I'm not alone in thinking this was totally out of order. It's very bizarre and I can't find anyone else online who's had the same issue.

To clarify a few things:
- They didn't ask me to check in my laptop; I ended up taking it as my second piece of hand luggage but I would have put it in my suitcase if they'd accepted that in the cabin. I flew home with EasyJet and did exactly that.
- I actually bought a hand baggage only fare by mistake and only realised when I got to the airport. That's how I ended up at bag drop and then Customer Services. It shouldn't have mattered though as my suitcase was compliant as hand luggage anyway.

What is HUACA?

If you paid by credit card it would be worth trying to reverse the charge (section 75 style) even though the charge was less than £100. If you're credit card company will do that then that leaves BA chasing you for the money - unlikely to be a problem.

Dear Mingo89 and another welcome to flyertalk.

I do hope you manage to get this resolved quickly and easily. However, I've not had great luck with customer relations on their first response for each of my complaints recently but peservence is key ! As others have said Twitter is also an option. Good luck :-)

My bank will step in once I've tried to resolve it with BA. They can pursue me for the money if they wish... They've already lost around 20 return flights a year on the LCY-IOM route as my dad lives there and has vowed never to use them again after the way I was treated!

My sympathies, Mingo89, it must have been infuriating and I'm not surprised you are angry. We all wish you luck so please do let us know how you get on.

Hang Up And Call Again. A regrettable necessity sometimes with BA, and sundry other organisations. We're fairly bad at using excessive abbreviations on this forum and I'm just as bad as everyone else. There is a glossary of useful terms in the forum Dashboard which may assist.

I must have tried to call BA Customer Services a dozen times, at different times of day. I go through all the options but then the line just goes dead. I can't even get as far as being put on hold. Is this normal?! I've given up on phoning, to be honest. I'm planning to write a letter next and include the photos of my bag.