expataus

UKtravelbear

Tafflyer

brunos

In theory missing bag claim should be filed with VS, but that is of course impossible as VS will have no record of the missing bag.
He could try to claim with BA pretending he ended up in LHR and could not find his bag on arrival. But that would be fraudulent.

KARFA

If this were one booking you would be correct and VS would be responsible as the last carrier, but as VS were not the last carrier on the relevant booking I think it would be a waste of time to contact them.

The OP's colleague needs to contact BA, it will either be with BA or with HAL lost property.

UKtravelbear

except the bag wasn't misplaced by BA it was apparently left / forgotten by the OPs colleague.

BA could say (a) well it's here at LHR come and collect it or (b) we can send it on but at your cost

Calchas

VS will find it on WorldTracer, not their own system.

If you were reliant on the final carrier having a record of your lost bag, not many lost interline bags would ever be found. (The problem is usually that the final carrier never received notice it was supposed to receive and deliver the bag.)

Maybe VS will notice it wasn’t interlined to them, maybe VS will find the ticketing information from the bag and figure out it was two tickets, maybe VS will find the PNRs to figure out whether there was no irrops to justify offline forwarding, maybe VS will notice that BA has a policy of not forwarding interline bags across tickets. Or maybe not.

Often1

The simple question is whether the passenger is prepared to own up to his error or whether he prepared to commit fraud. Presuming that the bag was properly delivered to LHR, it is neither delayed nor lost and OP simply failed to claim it at his final ticketed destination of LHR. Whether he is now at a hotel down the road or has flown half way round the world on another ticket is irrelevant.

BA will show the bag as delivered to the belt, pulled from the belt by BA and held in storage (or passed on). Filing a report that it is lost or missing is a simple fraud. Asking BA to forward the bag to the US destination is something which BA is not obligated to, but very much might do and it might even have the bag delivered locally. In theory, OP should pay for this as air freight, but that is highly unlikely.

Obtaining a good result is more likely than filing a report, only to have BA advise that it is clearly false as the passenger clearly did not pick up a bag which had been delivered to the belt and which BA staff later claimed from the belt.

windowontheAside

Is the colleague returning to the UK any time soon? It might be quickest and cheapest to sort it out on return if that's soonish.

corporate-wage-slave

My estimation - well, I'm never going to have personal experience of this - is that BA will regard this as just a forgotten bag, which is an extremely common event. Think families where multiple people look after multiple bags, and one or more bags just get forgotten. These are then piled up in the baggage area, waiting for someone to claim them. What should then happen is that you have to personally clear the bags through Customs. Just go to Arrivals, speak to a HAL security officer, who will take you via staff security. Bring your passport and then you should be admitted to the baggage reclaim area. At that point you can talk to a BA baggage agent who can tell you where the bag currently is and retrieve it from Unprocessed.

BA will know the bag is supposed to terminate at LHR, and they won't normally offer any alternative other than personal collection. If there is a DHL option I'm not aware of it.

UKtravelbear

But VS aren't getting the bag because it was tagged (correctly due to separate tickets) to LHR not to the VS destination. So VS aren't going to notice anything.

The tag won't have any mention of the VS flight at all because the BA checkin agents tagged it to LHR (i.e. the extent of the BA ticket)

BA will have no idea that the OPs colleague has an onward flight on VS so won't pass it on to VS.

BA has the bag.

irishguy28

But the bag was never reported as missing. The passenger left it behind at Heathrow and didn't collect it, nor report it as lost. It therefore won't be found on WorldTracer. And this has nothing to do with VS.

The OP's colleague will have to 'fess up to BA - that he genuinely forgot to collect his bag at LHR, and ask them to see if they can locate it, and how he can then arrange to be reunited with it.

VS will of course know that no bag was either checked in by them, or interlined to them. They will ask to see the relevant luggage receipt - which if the OP's colleague still has it, shows it as tagged by BA on HEL-LHR only.

There is absolutely no point in approaching VS as this has nothing at all to do with VS. The bag was not interlined and was not tagged onto the VS flight. The OP's colleague should have collected the bag at LHR but instead left it on the BA carousel. If the bag is still locatable, it can only be located via BA.

expataus

JAXBA

WorldTracer is also used to record random unclaimed bags as being 'on hand' at a station to enable matching with bags reported missing at another station.

It might well be recorded in WorldTracer as being in unclaimed storage at LHR. Still doesn't mean VS have anything to do with it though.

Often1

VS will be well aware that it was never intended to receive the bag. Under IATA convention, the bag is the responsibility of the last delivering carrier. On the ticket in question HEL-LHR, the last delivering carrier is BA at LHR. Whatever OP's intent was for the bag thereafter is a separate affair.