I see that my checked in allowance in J is 30kgs and my cabin baggage allowance is 10kgs. According to the website I can use part of my cabin allowance in the form of a suiter which would work really well for us as we are away for 4 weeks and include a cruise and a wedding however, how does this work at airports such as going through Heathrow flight connections who will not allow me to carry more than one item of cabin baggage? I had hoped to use one of our 10kg hand allowances as a suited, and split mine as a suit bag and small backpack for pc books inflight items etc.

Also how strict are they at Sydney on the return trip re weight at check in - I am relatively happy I can charm the BA lady I will be checking in with in Edinburgh on the outbound journey

Thanks

My reading of the rules at Heathrow is that you'll be subject to the BAA regulations: only one piece of luggage, 56 cm x 45 cm x 25 cm. Unfortunately, I don't think BAA are going to be accommodating to transit pax.

Chances of getting 2 bags past BAA if you are flying or transiting in the UK, esp LHR seems to be somewhat close to zero. The only way around this seems to be obtaining a carrier bag big enough to hold both of your bags, whilst still fitting into the one bag rule, and its dimensions allowed.

LHR FCC is brutal at enforcing the limits, there is zero chance of getting 2 bags through per pax, even if you are flying F. Presumably you are flying CX J, and not BA J, thus you cannot even use the FCC Fast-track -- it is for BA J/F only. Plan on spending an hour in line at LHR security, and if you have 2 bags, spending another hour going landside to check it as baggage.

Thanks - I actually travel to Heathrow very regularly on the domestic run and that was what I expected. Bad though Heathrow is I actually find Birmingham worse. I got told off for wearing my watch whilst going through the other week even though it is a small ladies watch and did not (and has never) set off their alarm.
We will actually be transfer passengers at Heathrow having come down from Edinburgh and will be doing the transfer from BA Terminal 1 to Terminal 3. I did wonder if CX had increased the checked in allowance as BA did immediately after the problem began to allow for passengers who might have cabin baggage problems but I guess not.

Oh well ho hum - at least we are allowed cabin baggage again!

It is BAA (the company that runs LHR airport) and not CX or BA or any of the airlines that is imposing the cabin baggage limit. CX is happy to let you have more (and some airports, such as HKG, use a tag system to allow excess cabin baggage through airport security -- BAA refuses to allow such a system at LHR). So this is entirely an airport issue, by a for-profit company that has decided that it can make many more millions a year in profit by limiting cabin baggage (and hiring fewer security staff; last time I checked the published numbers, LHR was under-staffed by over 1000 workers for security checks, which is a substantial saving in operating cost, as well as a substantial increase in waiting time and line length). Perhaps understandable if this was a transient condition, but LHR has had under-staffed security and long lines for the past 5 consecutive years (though it is much worse in the last 3 months than ever before, on some days).

I think thegreatmrsj was wondering about CX increasing the checked in allowance to compensate for the stricter cabin baggage allowance, rather than suggesting that CX was responsible for imposing the cabin baggage limits. That is presumably something that CX would have control over. Does anyone have any experience about how strictly CX is enforcing the checked in limits at LHR?

No recent experience, as I usually just have carry-on these days, but 2 years ago on CX F LHR-HKG I had 2 extra bags and that was accepted without comment or surcharge. CX has always been pretty reasonable about excess luggage in premium cabins.