felicidad76

What a horrible experience today.
I had a mixed itinerary pdx to den to lhr to beg in business. Alaska checked the begs to BEG, which is the final destination, with proper tags. In Denver I spent time working and just 50 min prior to boarding I went to verify passport at the gate. Lady said that my bags are not to be picked unless I exit security and bring the bags myself to ba counter. She says my itinerary is mixed and she has never seen a case where I don't bring bags to them.
To the insult, she informed me that even if they had bags I would have to leave security in lhr again and recheck to Belgrade as ju or air serbia is not BA. Further on she told me she has never heaed of interline term, nor she cannot do anything if it is not ba or OW. She asked me further to show proof of interline of BA and JU and luckily to my expertflyer.com membership I did.
Subsequently, she asked to show where the interline says that ba will tranfer bags to JU.
I was perplexed. I fly 6 times a year in cw USA to lhr to beg and I have never heard this. I always pick up bags in belgrade. This is the first time in Denver.
I don't know what to do. I had to board the plane. I called alaska customer rep as I am emerald, and they said they will investigate.
I guess once I land in lhr I will check with connections where is the bag. Once again, i have tags on the bags and tag receipts with me
I am typing this from the aircraft as I am figuring out what to do, as i will be only in europe for 4 days, so bags are essential.
thank u for any advice.

TTmex

Calming down would be a good start. Just wait until you get to t5 and head straight to the flight connections desk. Sure they'll be able to know what's happening with your bags. While I'm sure it's stressful, best thing here is to stick to the facts and you'll get better help. I was almost half tempted not to click on your thread in the first place because it comes across as rather DYKWIA even before you open it. Just enjoy the flight and get some rest as nothing you can do until you land. Safe travels

KARFA

What did the bag tag say in terms of where they were checked to?

guv1976

From the OP:

"Alaska checked the begs to BEG, which is the final destination, with proper tags."

felicidad76

beg

KARFA

so then I expect your bags will go to beg

jerry a. laska

While I also expect the bags will probably go to BEG, one eventual fly in the ointment could be that AS does not have an interline agreement for ticketing or baggage with JU.

surryson

Niche point but I’m not sure that BA even have a ‘station manager’ in DEN anymore. Handling agent duty manager, perhaps. Happy to stand corrected of course.

felicidad76

u r right, probably handling duty manager

Tobias-UK

BA are handled by Unifi Aviation at DEN, a large, long established service provider. I would be very surprised if the person the OP spoke to was a manager, if they were a manager then they certainly would have understood interline and how it works. I suspect the agent was new and unfamiliar with connecting baggage and how it works.

Like ​​​​​KARFA I’d expect the OP will be reunited with his bags at BEG.

guv1976

But does that matter? AS has an interline agreement with BA, and BA (apparently) has an interline agreement with JU.

Not sure if it makes a difference, but BA has a published, Business Class through-fare from PDX to BEG, with connections at DEN and LHR, utilizing AS and JU:

jerry a. laska

I don't know, OP didn't say if this is a single ticket or separate tickets only that the Denver agent said that the itinerary is "mixed" (whatever she meant by that). As I said I expect the bags will make it to BEG as the OP says they are tagged to go there but I was just pointing out the only potential issue that I could see.

guv1976

It would be interesting to learn whether the OP was traveling on a single ticket. AS has a policy of through-checking bags even on separate tickets.

corporate-wage-slave

That's short-hand for Mixed Carrier usually. Since the agent was hardly going to find the bag and retag it to LHR, the OP shoiuld have smiled and said "thank you for that". Bad inter-actions take two to tango in my not inconsiderable experience. The OP could check again at Flight Connections T5 but if s/he saw the bag labelled for BEG then that's not going to make much difference, whereas the gate agent for Serbia at T4 would be able to give more information. Once you are labelled BEG and in the hold then the issue of interline agreements become less useful since baggage handlers are not in the habit of looking this up at LHR - it's a big airport with far more airlines than DEN or PDX, so the bags would just be slung across into the T4 bin.

There is a BA airport manager for DEN, shared with ATL, but it's highly unlikely they would be checking bags.

If the OP is only going to be in BEG for a few days, then checking in bags isn't a great idea for completely unrelated reasons. It's best to go HBO in that scenario.

Ldnn1

I was thinking the same. The OP says the bags are ‘essential’. If that’s the case then (leaving aside the DEN argument) it would have been wise not to check them simply because there is no guarantee of them making it with you, especially with a double connection.