Do you receive a claim tag when luggage is gate checked using the yellow tags? How would the bag be traced if there's no record of the tag number that was attached?

I've only experienced it twice: once at Athens where they used normal white bag tags that had been pre-printed, which came with the normal claim tag; and a second time where my luggage was taken off me by the cabin crew once on the plane as there was no space left anyone, I didn't receive a claim tag and had a very nervous wait at the carousel on arrival. No experience of the yellow type of tags.

I know you also don't get a tag when using the self-service luggage check-in, but I'm told the system records the tag number against your booking details electronically. This doesn't happen with the gate checking system.

gate checked baggage
 

At Luton they had green (i think) pre printed labels - and yes, they detached the end section and handed it to the passengers.

you'd hope that with the bags left on the tarmac beside the plane as passengers boarded - the chance of them getting lost is fairly low !

I was thinking more about getting mishandled at the destination end. At Palma airport a few months ago, our airside bus was following a luggage cart. Two items fell off onto the road. Driver saw them but didn't stop, he just left them there. Our bus had to swerve to avoid them, again not stopping to pick them up. I'm sure these sorts of events happen rarely, but nice to have a claim tag just in case.

Any chance to get a full refund of a flight which operated?
 

snow storm Emma prevented us from flying to BCN on Fri, with Vueling. No problem getting that refunded. the inbound flight was booked for tonight with Ryanair, and it’s opertional. would Ryanair care enough to refund fully as we never made it to BCN on another ticket? I can’t use the Ryanair refund option as that’s only working for non Op flights.

Highly unlikely. It's worth asking anyway.

Do you have insurance in place?

No, why on earth would they? The flight is operational and you're not on it, as far as they're concerned, out of choice.

Claim on your insurance.

new hand luggage policy
 

i tested a different hand luggage type on Saturday - a reasonably large rucksack (but definitely within hand luggage size limits).

i had planned to have it on my shoulder whilst getting my boarding pass checked at the gate, but the gate agent came forward to us last few passenger (the gate area was packed out for our full flight) - and tagged the final passenger's wheely, and walked past my bag (which was almost the same size) sitting on the floor.

looking at the baggage trolley of hand luggage waiting to be loaded into the hold - there were a few non wheelies, although maybe they had been offered up by the passengers.

it does appear (at least with Luton departures) - that if you don't have a wheelie, you have a very good chance of getting your hand baggage into the cabin.

new hand luggage policy
 

it seems that FR staff at Stansted are operating the same policy - wheelies get tagged for the hold, but as long as your hand luggage is vaguely sensible size, and not a wheely, then you get away with bringing it into the cabin.

at least that was my experience departing from STN on Friday.

I have a 48hr trip to Budapest from Stansted next month, and I plan to carry a normal backpack well within the carry-on dimension limits of other non-budget airlines.

It looks like the small-only policy wasn't followed as strictly per the posts above, but the last message above is more than 3 months old, so just wondering if anyone has recent experience of how strict they are with normal backpacks which aren't exactly the official allowable tiny size?

Admittedly I expect my normal backpack to be only half full, but good to know nevertheless.

my last FR flights were in mid June and they only seemed interested in wheelies. so you should be fine ex STN, but other people have had different experiences at smaller FR airports, so your backpack might get more attention at BUD, but probably not! good luck, and let us know what happens.

So I have my Ryanair flight on Wednesday evening, but was invited to and able to check-in today (Monday) morning.

Unless this is a glitch, it looks like their new rule may actually be "2 days prior to departure date" rather than "48 hours before departure date and time"

Got a middle seat with a lot of emphasis throughout the check-in process that it was a middle seat :) ........... some things never change!

Not sure why you want to checkin "so early". :confused: I always checkin as late as possible. Get's me either an aisle seat at the front/ rear or an exit row seat.

late checkin
 

i normally do the same ... apart from last time i flew FR i missed the 2 hour deadline (first time ever), and ended up paying 55 quid at the airport ... which hurt !

Happy to report that my medium+ rucksack was fine to carry-on both ways, and whilst I had the middle seat booked both ways, on the return leg the window seat next to me was empty so I moved over and it worked out ok!