TheJayHatch

Checking in to the FW this am, travelling in Y to GVA, with hold luggage (don’t roast me - 10 days of climbing kit!), I questioned why I didn’t get a priority luggage tag.

Apparently these are not available for Y passengers, and it’s been this way for 4 years? Seems odd - especially as she removed a priority tag from the bag that was from GVA in April. I questioned, she was adamant…and said a tag wouldn’t matter as the machine knows I am travelling in Y. Is she right? I thought this was a BAEC benefit? Or has it been enhanced?

mikeyfly

Has that tag ever made a difference?! Isn't all the data that matters in the barcode ?

zen100

The tag is just for show - to make customers feel more important.

In practice, BA offers little (if any) priority luggage, no matter what the status, or class of travel.

Travelling in First, I don't think I've ever had my bags delivered to the carousel in the first batch

13901

Yes, the "snob tags" as they're called by the coalface workers have next to zero use (but for visually eyeballing the priority bin as you open it).

However, there are no priority bins on shorthaul as far as I know. The only bin segregation done for SH is for transfer passengers into London and at some shorthaul destinations (e.g. Madrid) that have sizeable connecting traffic. There were some analyses done, back in the day, to ascertain whether it was worth doing a separate bin for Club/Gold passengers and it found out that the average bag load for Club/GCH was extremely low and that creating an extra bin (that would mostly fly empty) would increase fuel consumption and increase the risk of baggage offloads especially in the event that a non-collapsible wheelchair, or an electric wheelchair, were to be booked on the flight.

scottishpoet

https://www.oneworld.com/travel-bene...world-priority

As per the info on this page, BA does not offer priority baggage no matter what label they stick on, nor what level of status you have.

. **Priority baggage handling is not currently available on flights operated by British Airways.

TheJayHatch

Quite. Just for clarity, I don’t care for the tags, but priority luggage I do - and would say I’ve almost always been first out. That may be luck, but the question was more whether priority luggage (insofar it actually exists) is available for BAEC Y, or - as suggested here - for no-one? My presumption based on (what I think are) advertised benefits is the barcode should be priority. And I was told it isn’t - which seems to be the case!

TheJayHatch

Thank you - helpful! It’s funny what one assumes based on what is done as a matter of course - although (like any sensible traveller) I avoid putting anything in the hold if I can!

scottishpoet

if you have regularly been first out then its luck

As per the one world site i posted BA has an exception regarding the benefit

PETER01

Forget the Gold, GGL tags etc

The only tag that really matters is a Flyertalk tag

(Which incidentally has Priority on it)

Agent69

I always have a bit of a smile when I see about 20 bags go by on the carousel and then one passes by with a priority tag on it.

danmushman

Wow I'd not seen that small print actually written anywhere before (though noticed priority didn't seem to make a difference on recent BA flights). How can they justify still going through the charade of tagging bags as 'priority' then at check in? Seems scandalous to me. However given then current situation I would just be happy getting bags within 2 hours of landing at LHR.
(For reference - LHR T3 - Sunday AY flight first bags came off flight at almost exactly 1 hour after landing and our bag was one of the first)

scottishpoet

Its been on that page for several years.

by the law of averages your bag will sometimes come off first

The charade of adding tags saves lots of arguments at check in and gives people a feel good factor.

corporate-wage-slave

Well you have seen the AKE bins wizzing around the tarmac at T5? T5 is nearly 100% containerised. On an A319 there may be just one or two AKEs, depending on loads. They get filled up from a series of belts from the warehouse more or less automatically, get taken as a pair to the aircraft. Upon arrival in whereever, they are off loaded together and then unloaded on to the carousel belt, usually together too. Clearly whatever is on top or sides of the bin gets out first, but it will be random how it got there. There is no prioritisation in bulk processing,. Priority baggage labels work best in less affluent economies where humans are still cheaper than computerisation or containerisation.

dca100

Meanwhile we recently flew an internal Avianca flight in economy within Colombia (not a OW partner, no status). For some reason the person who checked us in decided to give our bags priority (perhaps thanks to the BA GC bag tags on our cases??) They and the other priority bags came off first at BOG. We then flew back to London via Madrid in IB business. Bags were last off at T5 :-)

scottishpoet

What i have observed at smaller outstations may put all the bags on the belt before starting the belt. This is often the case when its just ond belt and the do not want loading interupted by bags coming bag round.

If they see a priority tag they may move it forward.

Where there is a series of belts so the are not hampered by returning bags this is less common as thd belt is started as they load the first bags