Chrisnichols

Hi everyone. I am flying on BA206 (MIA-LHR) today, which is currently showing as delayed by 2 hours 10 mins due to BA207 being 2 hours delayed.

I will therefore miss my connection to Dublin. As we’ll miss our (separately booked) onward connections from Dublin, it would be much easier if we could end our journey at Heathrow.

This is an avios redemption and we will have checked baggage.

Will BA allow us to do this? Or will we be made to stick to the original itinerary?

if this will be an option, will check in / ground staff at Miami be able to deal with this, or will it need to be a call to the gold helpline?

Most grateful for any advice,

Chris

Can I help you

Miami will only check your bags to LHR, so you have no need to complete the Dublin sector, is this a return journey or are you hoping to use the DUB LHR ticket?

corporate-wage-slave

I'm guessing you are still just over 24 hours to departure on LHR-DUB?

If it is separately booked and a single sector, then ring up BAEC / go into MMB and cancel the reservation, you lose up to Ł35 per person, but the Avios will be returned.

If it separately booked but part of a return booking, then urgently consider whether you can use that LHR-DUB sector on a future travel date. There is a Ł35 per person fee for that but the Avios can still be used.

This isn't a connection, just two separate contracts close together. BA won't care what you do, but there are options open to you, depending on the circumstances.

Chrisnichols

Apologies for any confusion, our itinerary (all avios) is MIA-LHR-DUB all booked on one ticket.

we then have separately booked onward connections from Dublin.

Now that we’re going to be delayed, what we’d like to do is drop the LHR-DUB sector and just end out trip in London.

KARFA

No problem doing that. You would be rebooked on a later LHR-DUB flight, albeit that may not actually happen until you are in the air and the arrival time becomes much clearer. You can usually move the LHR-DUB to a future date if needed, or get a refund for it - don't expect much! You can say you needed to be in DUB for a certain time, and now you are going to be on a later flight that no longer works so you don't wish to take the rebooked later flight.

Your additional complication is the baggage of course, so MIA may be reluctant to short check normally but under the circumstances you could ask them to and say this is because you are unsure whether you will make your connection and may choose not to go if on a later flght.

corporate-wage-slave

OK, I'm guessing you are on BA832 or BA828, and they will rebook you to BA834 departing 10:40.

Strictly speaking they will mark your bags to DUB, the check-in agent isn't supposed to short check to London but I guess you can ask. You could instead ask to be rebooked to a future date to DUB, or to scrub the connecting flight, but if it's Avios I suspect the agent won't be able to do that in MIA. If you don't actually do LHR-DUB then you can recover your bags in LHR but this could be a slow process and you may end up with a delayed baggage incident. One option would be to ask the agent to rebook you on LCY-DUB instead.......

Chrisnichols

Thanks very much, incredibly helpful as always!

As suggested, we’ll try and get the bags just checked to Heathrow and see how we get on from there.

Won’t be expecting much of a refund (if any) as the taxes were substantially less starting in Dublin rather than Heathrow!

Ikaz

This sounds like the return flight of an avios booking, for future reference you can book an avios open jaw ticket:
-DUB-LHR-XXX
-XXX-LHR

so you benefit from the lower taxes by leaving Dublin, but don’t need to go there on your flight back.
If your final destination is a BA destination, you could also book direct to another destination

Before the avios price changes, I would usually book
INV-LHR-TYO
TYO-LHR-MAN

DirektornSE

I've seen this before but I'm curios what the reason would be as OP has the entire itinerary on one ticket and the luggade would normally be sent to the final destination. Is that the normal process nowadays post-brexit?

NWIFlyer

No, it's nothing to do with Brexit. BA won't through check on separate tickets, which is what it was originally thought the OP had booked. It only later transpired the DUB leg was on the same ticket.

flying_geek

I keep reading this - and I know it's policy. But I have had very good success getting them to do it from any almost any non UK airport - including MIA - though there someone has to go to some older computer in the back to do it. Yes, they say they are not supposed to, they are making an exception etc. My main other start point is VIE where I usually don't get any resistance at all.

KARFA

Unfortunately there are lots of stories posted on this board where BA have refused.

I think the problem is anyone connecting between separate bookings must plan on the basis the answer will be no in line with the policy. obviously you can ask, and you may get lucky, in which case that's a point in your favour and you have saved yourself any hassle.

mmogdan

Where is the separate booking from DUB going to?

flying_geek

Yes, no doubt one has to plan based on them not doing it. All I am saying my experience shows it is not quite as impossible as it sounds on FT. And I don;t have any super status - just Emerald, a nice smile and a polite question. In MIA sometimes it takes the "I know you guys can do it on the old system in the back".

Chrisnichols

Thanks everyone - the check in agent was happy to only check our bags to Heathrow, and we were able to finish our trip there, so it all worked out ok!