Hello.

I was looking for some advice.

In May this year I will be doing a DONEx. Part of this will be MCT to DPS, via LHR and NRT. There will be a 9 hour layover in LHR and a 5 hour layover in NRT. Because I am transiting through LHR I can only take one bag as cabin luggage, the other must be checked in. My question is: Where should I check the bag through to? LHR? NRT? or should I try for DPS?

The reason that I don't think I will be able to check it though to DPS when I arrive at MCT airport is that the NRT-DPS flight won't leave until 30 hours after I leave MCT. I tried to do a similar thing a few years ago on another DONEx, when I was checking in at IST. My routing was IST/LHR/SFO/SJU/JFK with no stopovers. The BA agent could only check my bag through to SFO as the rest of the flights weren't 'open yet'. On that occasion it didn't really matter, since I had to collect my bag at SFO anyway to clear customs. But on this trip it would be nice if I could just check it through the whole way, so that I don't have the hassle of going landside, picking it up and re-checking it.

If I can't check it all the way from MCT to DPS, I assume that my best option is to pick it up at LHR (assuming it arrives...), put it in left luggage, (since apparently BA don't want you checking in more than 3 hours before your flight leaves) going into London for a few hours, coming back to LHR, getting it out of left luggage and checking it in for LHR-NRT-DPS (sigh), and then checking myself in at the bar in the lounge!

Alternatively I could check it through to NRT and collect it before I change terminals for the JL flight to DPS.

Any thoughts?

Many thanks & sorry about the lenght of the post.

Cheers,

medicus

I'd suggest LHR, if only to avoid the all to real chance of your bags being swallowed into BA's Heathrow Bag Blackhole.

That sounds a bit over the top - under normal conditions does LHR misconnect an unusual number of bags?

Not under normal circumstances, but December was a bad month. There were so many bags misconnected at LHR that BA was flying them to MXP to be processed (true story!); no statistics released on average delivery time for misconnected bags, but I've heard 14 days. Over 20,000 bags "lost" at one point, due to a failure of a baggage sorting system. BA recently held its annual meeting, and revealed that the 3 service disruptions last year cost over USD 200 million for BA (and the lost bags were maybe USD 50 million of that!). Under the circumstances I think Swanhunter's comments are well founded, and if anything understated in the classic British way.

Things are better now at LHR -- this week. Who knows when the next syste failure will occur? LHR was simply not intended to be processing the number of bags that it does now (the 1 bag carryon limit and liquids ban did a lot to increase the LHR baggage sorting problems, but LHR has had this problem for the past decade).

So this is a hypothetical question and the DONEx has not actually been bought yet (JL cannot be included on OWE yet, so you cannot buy this ticket before April 1). Might I suggest that you route LHR-HKG-DPS on CX instead? Much nicer flight than JL (which runs a stripped-down J for DPS, don't expect the same J you would get LHR-NRT on JL, for example), and HKG is far nicer than NRT for connections. And CX at LHR could retag your baggage through to DPS if it was only able to be tagged through to HKG; or accept check-in 9 hours before (unlike BA). This would save you the left luggage fee at LHR (which is pretty high, something like USD 20 per day when I last used it).

Everyone thanks for your suggestions.

number_6 that's a great sugestion of going via HKG. I lose out a bit because the fewer miles mean 20 fewer SC (for those of you who are QF freq flyers), but the connections are better and I save 8 hours in time. There is a QF flight from LHR to HKG at the same time as the CX one, but the QF flight leaves from T4, which is where the MCT flight arrives. (Seems odd that CX is in One World, but leaves from T3?) The QF flight is an easier connection, I would be able to use the MB spa, etc. Plus I get double points for flying QF as opposed to CX (which makes the long haul in QF J worth it), although I would love to fly CX J long haul one day. The Pier is great and HKG is a good airport for connections.

The CX flight to DPS on the day I'm flying is a 2 class 330. I assume that it will be regional J? (The weekend HKG-DPS flights are in a 3 class 774, but my schedule is not flexible enough to change to a weekend flight.)

If I fly via HKG instead of NRT, then my travelling time is shorter, but the HKG-DPS flight still leaves around 30 hours after I book in at MCT. I assume collecting my luggage in LHR and checking it in straight away to DPS would be my best bet?

Thanks again.

Depends on how much you trust LHR baggage handling. I've checked bags through multiple flights where the last flight leaves around 36 hours after the first one, with no problems. Then again, this is LHR we are talking about.