I successfully short-checked bags to LHR yesterday and did not fly the final leg to ARN. With a 3 hour drive from LHR it was good to be at home before the flight to ARN had even landed.

However I was quite up-front with Etihad about not wanting to fly the last leg. I rang the service centre during my stay in Sydney and contacted them again during my 4 day stop-over in Abu Dhabi, asking whether it would cost anything to drop the last leg. There was talk of re-issuing and re-pricing of tickets, until I finally asked what was there to stop me and Mr WSM just not turning up for the last flight. The representative said he would check that and later I was messaged to say it was possible and just had to make sure I got the bags tagged to LHR. They seemed more concerned that I got my bags and fully understood that we would not be able to take the LHR-ARN flight at a later date.

At the airport I was expecting to have to show my messages from Etihad, but my request to short-check the bags was accepted (maybe a note had been put on my booking) even though I was told we had to be checked in for both flights. Again it was stressed that if we dropped LHR-ARN we would not be abe to fly it on another date and we had to promise that we would go the the transfer desk to tell SAS that I wouldn’t be flying because “you are checked in and they will be waiting for you”!

It wasn’t easy to explain that since I wouldn’t be doing the LHR T4 to T2 airside transfer I wouldn’t be encountering any transfer desks. On arrival at LHR I did make an effort to contact SAS but their Service Centre closed at 7pm and the separate number they gave on a recorded message doesn’t exist. I even rang Etihad. After I had calmed down the alarmed agent who said the bags would be winging their way to ARN (“no they won’t, we have them in the car”) he said not to worry, I didn’t have to do anything.

Sorry to have rambled on, but I thought this might be of interest. And for anyone planning to take just hand luggage to make dropping the last leg easier, we were surprised that our hand luggage was weighed when we checked in at Sydney.

WSM

We flew from Abu Dhabi on EY17, arriving into LHR T4 at 18.45 and were then due to fly out of T2 at 21.05 on EY7455, operated by SAS.

We had fully intended to complete the whole trip when we booked it. We had a hotel booked for the night at ARN and our positioning flight with BA was a return flight ticket. Plus we had a meet-and-greet car pick-up arranged at T5 for our return from ARN. One of the reasons I was completely up-front with Etihad about dropping the last leg was that we had a hotel cancellation deadline and also needed to bring the car meet-and-greet car pick-up forward and change terminal. So we didn’t feel we could risk waiting until check-in at Abu Dhabi to see if it was possible to short-check the bags.

As I mentioned, it was surprisingly easy to get the bags short-checked, but there could have already been a note on the booking to allow it after I’d had the OK from the Etihad Service Centre. (Not at all easy to get in touch with them by the way. The local number in Abu Dhabi was engaged at all times of day. I contacted them via facebook and twitter and then someone arranged for the Service Centre to call our hotel.)

P.S. I am now living in fear of Etihad repricing the fares and sending us a bill for the difference. But all along I said I wanted to know what the change would cost and wouldn’t do it if it cost too much. When I suggested the short-checking there was no mention of any penalty of change fees....

You never want to be ringing reservations telling them of your intentions as they'll want to reprice the airfare to ARN/MEL/LHR which you don't want. You're giving the airline the opportunity to advise the airport in advance of your intentions to circumvent the system to avoid paying the higher fare to LHR. They could've put a checkin comment in saying "do not short tag bags to LHR" or sent you to the ticket counter to pay the adcoll to ending in LHR not ARN . This scenario could so easily have gone the other way but you were lucky it worked out for you this time.

It's always better to do things like that at airport checkin as CSA's aren't really interested about the fares and ticketing side of things - they just want to get you checked in.

Some airlines will not short tag bags at all eg AA so if you have connecting flights with less than 12 hours your bags will be through checked to your final destination end of story. If you want to take bags with you to the hotel on an overnight transit stop you would need to book the itinerary in such a way that you had an least 12 hours enroute eg SJD/xLAX/xDFW/FLL where you wanted your bags in DFW, you'd need to have at least 12 hours after arriving in DFW (from LAX) before departure to FLL then your bags could be checked SJD/xLAX/DFW as I don't believe your next oncarriage flight DFW/FLL would be visible.

I appreciate what you are saying, but I wasn’t exactly ringing Etihad to tell them of my intentions to circumvent the system, I was ringing to ask how much it would cost to drop the last leg. We had reasons (which I explained in another post - see below) for wanting to know in advance whether they would agree to short-check, rather than leaving it until we checked in. We had a hotel night booked at ARN and a car meet-and-greet arranged for our return to LHR from ARN - neither of which we would have done if we had planned from the start to drop the last leg.

I received a positive response to my short-check suggestion, so rather than advising the airport that we intended to circumvent the system, I actually believe that Etihad advised the airport that it was OK to short-check us.