lightmirror

Sadly, there's not. It doesn't give any detailed information for passengers who are travelling hand luggage only, except to say that laptops etc cannot be placed in hand luggage. I wanted to make sure my laptop and hand luggage will be taken at the gate and placed in the hold (I don't mind if this happens), rather than being confiscated.

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk lightmirror and welcome to the BA forum. It's good to see you here, and despite the difficulties this restriction will undoubtedly cause, I nevertheless hope you have a good time in Istanbul, once of the world's more amazing and fascinating cities. I hope we will see more of you in this forum.

I've had to go through this a number of times now, and I'm otherwise a strictly HBO traveller. I would strongly advise you to have with you a suitable padded bag to be surrendered at check-in. If you are within your baggage allowance for HBO then you won't be charged. There are checks in place to ensure that the bag will end up on the BA service and so far I have had no problem at reclaiming my PC. For me it's a nuisance (I have to wipe down the entire contents of the hard disk before travel and then re-image the hard disk back after recovering the PC) but at least one can prepare in advance. At IST you can hand over the PC at the gate, but personally I think it is better to do it at check-in, and get the relevant printed confirmation of the checked baggage there.

lightmirror

Perfect. This is exactly what I was looking for. I've travelled to Cairo, Amman, and Istanbul many times, but never with a laptop since the ban, and never with BA -- this is my first BA flight after decades of flying. It's good to know I can hand my bag in at BA check-in at Istanbul even if I'm hand luggage only. Thank you.

hfly

You know, this is a case of asking too many questions. HBO or no, BA will let you check in the bag with a laptop out of IST plain and simple. Furthermore I would suggest that you do it AT THE GATE, as in that case it gets put directly on the plane and does not go through all the baggage belts, etc, giving it less chance to get lost, manhandled or opened/items stolen.

lightmirror

hfly

I was more responding to, " Basically, it's your problem how your laptop will be carried in the hold." by lightmirror. It is not "your problem" it is BA's problem and liability, and truth be told forgetting about laptops, there already is a normal practice of them allowing for the check-in of bags for HBO people at the gate at about 95% of stations (often at their insistence if the flight looks heavy) and in this situation, it is BA's responsibility to get your laptop back with you assuming that you have it decently packed, the situation is now more than ridiculous as on any given day there can be up to 40 flights a day between Turkey and the UK, but only the one or 2 BA flights are still effected? Locally BA knows very well that this is hurting their business, I personally dropped most of my short BA trips from IST months ago and went with TK in many cases, because this is the straw that broke the camels back, BOB on a 4.5 hour flight is bad enough in the back, but this craziness continues as well? I'm not even going to go into the matter that they flat out refuse Gold members fast track passes now on arrival (whether or not it was policy before I am not even going to get into, what I can tell you is that up until about 6 months ago, any GC member flying in the back who asked for a Fast Track card (now sticker) got one, now they are rationed!

KARFA

I got one 4 months ago in October.

EDIT; actually I was in CE so forget my comment as hfly​​​​​​​ mentions flying in ET.

Worcester

The check in desks don’t hand out fast track cards when the queues are short. This does often work in your favour as the standard emigration with multiple short queues are quicker than fast track with a long queue. This happens irrespective of Gold/Club.

hfly

Actually for the last two months or so "Cards" do not exist anymore, they are now barcode stickers. A couple of carriers that bothered to print their own fast track stock are still using their own cards, but not BA who were always too tight to print their own. Further evidence of the extreme cheapness is what you just posted Worcester, they MUST give you Fast Track, irrespective of what the queue situation is, but a certain BA manager is obviously trying to channel Alex Cruz, and be extremely cheap. In any case my issue is with ARRIVAL, where seemingly BA stealthily changed the wording for BA GC holders traveling in Y, stating that they were only guaranteed outbound Fast Track, not inbound. As I stated, until about 6 months ago (could be 8, could be 5), if one was flying in Y as a GC holder and ask the agent meeting the flight for Fast Track (often a third party Havas worker) for a Fast Track card (showing ones GC) and would get one. Not anymore.

So in effect what this means for a Gold Card holder traveling to/fr Istanbul now is that:
One gets no food or drink, only BOB
TK GIVES DECENT FOOD AND DRINK. IN CLUB TK'S FOOD IS FAR SUPERIOR.
One gets standard BA seating irrespective of Club or ET.
2-3 TK FLIGHTS PER DAY ARE ON LONG HAUL AIRCRAFT. IN BUSINESS ALMOST ALL TK AIRCRAFT HAVE FAR SUPERIOR SEATING IN J.
One gets a crappy lounge out of IST, as they changed last year from the Ok lounge downstairs to the crappy Millenium lounge upstairs (not to mention that we used to have our own dedicated BA lounge that they abandoned about 6-7 years ago)
THE TK LOUNGE IN IST IS ONE OF THE TOP IN THE WORLD AND THE LH F LOUNGE AT LHR THAT TK USES IS BETTER THAN THE BA F LOUNGE ESPECIALLY CATERING.
One gets Fast Track in only one direction when flying in Y as elite.
THE ONLY THING THEY ARE MATCHED ON.
Often there is only ONE flight a day, and these days hopefully TWO stick, down from 3 and generally on smaller aircraft.
TK HAS FIVE OR 6.
One cannot carry ones computer or large electronics in cabin, so one is forced to check baggage.
TK HAS NO ISSUES WITH THIS, APPROVED BY THE UK GOVERNMENT.

And BA wonders why they are losing the Turkish market?

When I read what I have just written I question myself why I continue to sometimes fly BA on this route!

Grace B

I expect that Alex doesn't care, and I won't give him a penny more for BA flights from/to IST and CAI, especially as I'm lifetime *G. How low can BA go?

Worcester

Four hours in those new slime line Y seats is also going to make BA less competitive. Mind you LH have some really good fares at the moment.

hungry

lcyguy

Worcester

You can also get that with a TAV passport, which also means you can use most of the lounges and some other side benefits

Duncs

in IST lounge now for flight home. I was fully aware of cabin restrictions but have been caught out by the restriction on power banks in checked luggage. No explicit mention on BA only on .gov.uk. But both have the heading of hand luggage. Why would I be looking under that heading for hold luggage restrictions?