Downgraded High-Flyer

Advice sought please. Due to fly Miami to Inverness in First. Would really like to experience the Concorde Room, but would like to drop the "connecting" LHR-INV flight and instead fly later that day on a separate ticket to Glasgow.

Can this be done without causing problems? I will not have any checked luggage. My concerns are around checking in and transiting security.

Is it necessary to have checked in for the LHR-INV flight to gain access to the Concorde Room. Or could I simply check in for the LHR-GLA flight and still gain access using the MIA-LHR First boarding pass?

If the former, can I just leave the Concorde Room say half an hour before the scheduled departure of the Invernesss flight, and advise the staff I won't be taking the flight? Do I then have to go back landside before checking in for Glasgow and going through security again.

Is it better to book the LHR-GLA flight without my BAEC number to avoid any posibble booking conflict?

Many thanks for any insight or guidance.

Tobias-UK

Simply present your inbound MIA BP and your GLA BP - nothing else is necessary. Do not check in for the INV flight if you do not intend to fly it. You must enter T5 with your GLA BP in any event to meet conformance otherwise you will be offloaded as a no-show.

mgiarc

Are you intending to leave the airport before boarding your GLA flight - sounds like no, but could be important? If so, you will need to get the ready to fly flag removed from your booking before you will be allowed through security a second time. Go to a desk landside and, in my experience, allow plenty of time for several attempts at this. In that case, your plan A may be easier - arrive in the CCR for your INV flight, but inform BA when leaving the airport that you're not taking the flight.

corporate-wage-slave

This is of course correct but there is an added feature to conformance here - you need biometrics to be added to whatever domestic or Ireland service you actually want to take. Therefore going into airside with an INV boarding pass could lead to endless problems if you end up trying to go to GLA. For everyone's sake it's best not to do this.

Moreover from certain locations (but not all) after you have flown INV-LHR-Somewhere, then you can call to switch the return from Somewhere-LHR-GLA and it will cost little or nothing. It will be free if at some point after ticketing BA changed the timings of LHR-INV. So it maybe worth a call in advance if this is your plan, and that will also deal with any checked luggage. Though an HBO booking will be a lot easier here. I noticed (in another context) that this doesn't always work but you should discuss this with a Contact Centre agent or with a ticketing agent at LHR to see what can be done.

There is no reason to leave off your BAEC number, that just makes life unnecessarily complicated to my mind.

IAN-UK

I think those ever-helpful Miami agents will have checked you in for the Inverness flight: indeed they'll probably have insisted on doing so

I'm not sure how you'll manage the check-in and conformance rigmarole for Glasgow. Online check-in would be easy enough, and so would the first-wing desks: but I'd probably avoid the airside transfer desk.

In similar situations I've always exited landside and re-entered upstairs, starting a new journey as it were. My concern, probably baseless, is that as an "unexpected" airside transfer I'd confuse the system.

corporate-wage-slave

It's probably quicker if you have First Wing access, but otherwise your concern is baseless (which sounds a bit harsh!) since Ready To Fly works the same at any point of entry into airside. See the note about biometrics - on domestics you can't fool the system by presenting one boarding pass and departing on another.

IAN-UK

OK, so ...... landing from, say, Los Angeles, with a LAX-issued boarding pass to Bucharest in my pocket, I wouldn't upset anyone or anything by using an online check-in document to transfer airside to a Manchester flight?

No flashing lights, klaxons, armed guards and revenue sniffer-dogs?

Maybe I'm over cautious, but I'm guessing it wouldn't be the best idea to get the new boarding card from the airside transfer desk.

corporate-wage-slave

Nope and conspiracy theories can also be laid to rest on your second point too. I don't see the point in checking in to a service you don't use, however. But the system doesn't greatly care at this point, so long as you are HBO.

But if you have e-gate access and First Wing access then landside is normally faster and it's a more direct route than Flight Connections, unless CCR and using South Security (thereby losing "fast" track). But the computers couldn't care less.

TheJayHatch

On a related subject, if I fly IB on a F ticket and have an OB later the same day in CE to Europe (all HBO, but unlinked/separate bookings), do I have to exit to then re-enter for conformance? I am also assuming I can show my IB F boarding pass and OB CE BP to get back into the CCR, but is that a reasonable one?

The _Banking_Scot

Hi,

I assume here IB means inbound ( the standard code for Iberia is IB which does not have a F cabin)

You could use your OB bp for pasing through lfight connections ( print it off or get it from the transfer desk) without going landside

Regards

TBS

IAN-UK

The LAX agents are unlikely to give much choice in checking-in for the onward LHR XXX sector. Is there a downside to altruistically checking-out of that unwanted flight once at Heathrow?

corporate-wage-slave

If you are HBO then you can just use the App / OLCI and untick XXX accordingly. If you are in LHR Baggage Collection, reclaiming luggage bound for XXX, then that action does the trick anyway. Just allow a couple of hours for that.

Downgraded High-Flyer

I am so grateful for all the replies.

It appears I may have been worrying unnecessarily. For some reason I thought any onward flight from Heathrow had to be on a connecting flight on the same booking. It seems the inbound First boarding pass is sufficient.

So at Miami, I will ask to be checked in only for the Heathrow flight. I can then check myself in for the Glasgow flight and I can use that boarding pass to go through security and still access the Concorde Room.

If in spite of my best endeavours, I find myself checked in and holding a boarding pass for the Inverness flight when departing Miami, should I advise someone at Heathrow that I won't be flying. Or will the fact that I will not have used the Inverness boarding pass at security mean that there isn't an issue?

C-W-S, thanks for mentioning that changing the final destination from INV to GLA might be a feasible option. I never even considered that. The question is, should I book a £50 one way economy ticket to Glasgow now. Or take the risk that changing the booking after departure will be affordable; and if it is not, how much more expensive would a one way ticket be at that point?

Once again, many thanks to all.

corporate-wage-slave

For your first point above, then so long as your boarding pass is not scanned in T5 then that is all you need to do, at 30 minutes to departure approx, the system knows you are not going to show up.

For the second point, if you haven't already travelled then I would book an Avios ticket which could be cancelled at 24 hours with the loss only of the the RFS fee (£17.50 assuming it is a single). Otherwise you need to have a fairly forensic knowledge of ticketing to work out which ticketing route is the most viable.

Note that if you have checked baggage, you may not have a choice, your bag will almost certainly be tagged to INV. It can be reclaimed in LHR but it's hassle and I wouldn't recommend it. If you are actually arriving in T3 it gets even more problematic. If HBO then there isn't this difficulty.

RGS5526

How would the cost of changing the booking from MIA-LHR-INV to MIA-LHR-GLA before checking in in MIA compare with the price of a stand-alone LHR-GLA ticket?