adrianjc32

I am so sorry to hear your trip was spoiled. Sadly that day in T4 if BA had made announcements about bags being likely to miss flights I think that there would have been mass disruption as every single customer would have wanted to check and then discuss the situation (those conversations are rarely brief and without emotion). Resources are not designed to cope with that scenario. Bags are loaded onto aircraft until minutes before pushback and at that point the aircraft door is usually closed and the jetty off, quite simply it would mean a substantial delay to inform each customer about the status of their luggage at the board point. I have lost bags in the past and appreciate how crippling it is to a trip, but this was a failure of the BAA owned baggage system (as it was when my bag was chewed up at LGW north) and BA staff worked flat out to get as many bags manually shifted to flights. Even if a warning had been made, it would not have been possible to tell you with any certainty if your bag would or would not make the flight, and if you decided to go home you still may have not received your bags back (bags were trapped in conveyer chutes). There was a degree of chaos in the baggage system and information was sporadic, the customer service staff would have genuinely struggled to advise you what was happening as things kept changing and solutions failed one after another. Sadly the baggage system is vast and just because belts are moving in one area it does not mean that belts are moving several floors down. I know that this will be of little comfort, and I can only say sorry for that. If it really is the end of the road for you and BA that is a pity, but from the CR responses you have copied onto here I don't know what more BA can do for a problem that was essentially beyond their immediate control and they tried to minimise as best they could.

nobbyclark

Sell them on eBay and donate all of the proceedings to the charity of your choice. You have this option at the point of setting up the eBay item and all you will need to do is book the flight for the winner.

kayley

I have a holiday apartment and am intending to offer a week's accommodation to a charity for someone who perhaps needs a respite holiday away from a difficult situation ie handicapped child, child bereavement or similar.
I'm not in a position to offer flight costs as well but if there was anyway of using those miles it would be terrific.

kayley

I have just offered the use of my holiday apartment, for a week, to a charity for a family who are in need of a respite break or somewhere to grieve after the death of a child.
If they accept the offer they could probably make good use of those miles.
( I tried to post this earlier, but I'm not sure where I put it!).

nobbyclark

See item 140077053068 on ebay.co.uk. 110k air miles currently going for £697 - that's a lot of dosh to give to charity.

Raffles

Indeed, although I personally wouldn't want to go through the hassle of having to deal with an ebay buyer to make the flight arrangements. Especially if the person who buys the miles has no idea how the BA scheme works re capacity controls, almost 100% black-outs on certain routes etc. Far better to offer them to friends, family, work mates etc who you could hand-hold through the booking process.

Globaliser

I understand the aggravation, but what would your decision have been if the answer had been "Your bags may or may not be on the flight, and that's all we can tell you"? That, in reality, is the situation that you would have been in.

BTW, I'm not sure it's true that every flight has a list of the bags on board. The baggage handlers make the list, but I'm not sure it goes on board. Anyone know?

SchmeckFlyer

As I said before, I've made it a habit of checking at the gate (at LHR usually the flight dispatcher somewhere in the bowels of the gate) about the status of my bags. Sometimes they are onboard and sometimes not, but I've never thought to ask the cabin crew. My guess is they do not know, as one needs access to whatever computer system/intranet tracks baggage information, at least I always see them typing things and/or scanning my baggage stubs when I inquire.

If it is close to departure and my bags are still not aboard, I will ask at my arrival station before I spend an hour waiting aimlessly. On 4 or 5 occasions, I immediately discovered my bags had not arrived and I could fill out all the necessary forms before wasting my time at the caroussel as well as before a queue formed.

al613

Hello! I have been reading forum for a while, but just joined to reply to your post

I represent a non-profit organization and we will be happy to take your donation. Please, let me know how can I contact you to make all necessary arrangements.

AJLondon

And which organization might that be?

al613

Milwaukee Synagogue for Russian jews

We help immigrants who come from Eastern Europe and can use miles pretty easily

AJLondon

Does your charity / non-profit org have a website and/or an associated charity license number?

And of course, only the OP can determine how close to his heart this particular cause is or whether there might be more appropriate recipients.



Anyways welcome to FT, under some rather interesting circumstances nonetheless.

redshift27

The OP could perhaps gain a new kind of Diamond Status?

latitude

I see you are a member of several FF programs...I hope you donate your own miles as well

AJLondon