If you don't have status - How to avoid having your trolley checked in at gate?
 

Hi,

We don't have status so... is booking a seat in CE the only way? Our current Economy tickets are Avios redemptions from last year IB 90k promo, I guess we'll be in boarding group 5.

Thanks.

Other than making sure it's small enough to go under the seat in front, there's no surefire way if you're in Group 5 and on a fairly busy flight.

Thanks, that's what I thought... No, it won't fit. Actually I'll be carrying a backpack which does fit plus a trolley.

In some airports, the easiest option is pulling off the bag tag when no-one is looking.

I imagine this all depends if its an Aldi or a Waitrose trolley :D

Haha yeah, I've seen that many times.

Certain leisure routes (I'm thinking Gatwick) a lot of the passengers have checked a hold bag and the overheads were actually not bad - this was the case last week to Tenerife, despite the crew announcing full flight several times there was plenty of room

This hasn't happened to me yet, but I always have a Tesco :eek: bag for life in the trolley just in case it does so that I can remove all of the valuables, travel documents and medicines, before handing over the (now completely empty) trolley to be stored in the hold. The (extremely full) Tesco bag can then be stuffed under the seat after half of it has been first decanted into the seat pocket.

The other option could be to buy yourself a soft "hold all" type bag. Before reaching the the heady heights of silver, I never had mine or my friend's taken for the hold.

I have to say, having status seems to make very little difference in my (I acknowledge limited) experience. I have seen plenty of people at the front of the Groups 1-3 queues having a wheely bag taken off then, to much wailing.

I was going to say my best strategy has been to only have one bag and nothing else on my person - and then OP said "Actually I'll be carrying a backpack which does fit plus a trolley." I think if the flight is full and you are either at the beginning or near the end, you have a high chance of the wheely being taken off you. Exactly the same thinking as @SteveF, if the trolley is your only bag the chances are it has items in it you need to remove (prescription medication, laptop, valuables, coat) and so it will be a faff for the gate agent to wait for you to take all those items out before you board and you are likely to complain about having to carry all those items by hand onto the plane. That is my thinking anyway.

Fair enough. The reason I'm asking is because we'll be in OPO-LGW on a Monday night, landing at LGW at 23:15. I just don't want to be waiting for our bags till dawn... Two weeks ago they took ages to come out in LHR T5. You could see the desperation in everyone's faces :D

I am guessing you aren't flying that regularly on BA, so my apologies if you know all of this. It's fairly rare for items to be gate checked against the will of the passenger. It needs to be a full shorthaul aircraft with a small CE cabin and a lot of Basic travellers in it. And when that happens BA sends out emails inviting people to check in for free anyway. I was on one such flight yesterday, only 5 rows of CE, totally full A320 including jump seats, and they could have got another 20 bags on board no problem. Occasionally some bags are sent to the hold during or after boarding, but this is less than 10% of flights in my experience, though I have seen a few more extreme situations.

If your bag does not have wheels it is even less likely to be gate checked. The more squidgy and nearer the shoulder, the less likely it is to happen. If you have just one bag and it's inside the guidelines then it is even less likely. If ground agents are told to find volunteers they tend to do so at the start of boarding hence the the soi-disant "gate lice"* tend to be targetted since they tend to be most overloaded. By the time they get to Group 5 the clock is running is down quite sharply and the priority is to get everyone on board.

The main exceptions will be DUB and AMS, and also on Embraer aircraft, where genuinely there is't a lot of space.

* usual disclaimers apply.

Just tell them your carry on contains several portable batteries.