pinniped

Well, yeah, it's hard - you have to do some laundry. But it's typically one of the things we live with if we're considering hidden city.

Most airlines won't do this. In some cases, it's a hard legal requirement - known as positive bag matching or similar - and in other cases it's airline policy. That's not to say mistakes and misrouted bags don't happen, but generally speaking most major airlines won't let the passenger willingly separate himself/herself from the bag. Maybe there are parts of the world where this isn't checked, but I've been in Europe and the U.S. and had to wait onboard while the baggage crews offloaded a bag because of this rule.

On most airlines, the 2x carry-on only works if one of the two can fit under your seat. The GA won't likely let you board with two 22" rollaboards. It's "carry-on plus personal item". YMMV on how tough they enforce sizes, but if Bag 1 is a roller, Bag 2 should be on your back or over your shoulder.

As for the short-check, all I'm saying is that in 2019 counter agents know hidden city when they see it. If the airline has a written policy about short-checking and your itin fits due to length of connection, overnight, etc., then great. I just wouldn't expect any kind of out-of-policy short-check these days.

cargueiro

Paragraph 4.5.3 of Annex 17 to the International Convention on Civil Aviation (Chicago) states:

"Each Contracting State shall ensure that commercial air transport operators do not transport the baggage of persons who are not on board the aircraft unless that baggage is identified as unaccompanied and subjected to appropriate screening."

As you are flying BKK-AUH-LHR-ARN (all airports in contracting states), your bag(s) will not be transported as they won't have been identified as unaccompanied and subjected to appropriate screening at LHR. The positive bag match that Pinniped referred to should ensure they are offloaded.

If you really want to do this, I would check the bags to ARN and get off in LHR. Your bags will be offloaded in LHR. I would then immediately contact EY at LHR and give a reason why you suddenly had to disembark and ask when you can come and collect the bag(s) or have them delivered.

I don't advocate this though. You will place additional pressure on turnaround crew at LHR as they will have to find and offload your baggage when you no show and if this delays the flight will be deemed a failure by them in SLA appraisal. If the flight is delayed, your fellow passengers will also be upset. Also, if you manage to wrangle home delivery, I fail to see why the airline should pay this when you were hidden city ticketing to deprive them of revenue.

You may also encounter incompetent baggage staff at EY, SK GHAs who try to pass buck and not deal with your mishandled baggage. I am 99.9% sure you will get your baggage back (unless it was truly lost) but it may be a bit of a hassle.

Talay

Following completion of all the flights I thought it only fair to return and recount my experiences.

Outbound, all was as expected. An easy LHR-ARN positioning flight, swift baggage collection and check in for ARN-FRA-AUH-BKK and we were on track as per usual, albeit with a much longer routing. Upon arriving at Bangkok, I was truly shattered and along the way, I was regretting the choice to go this half price but seemingly twice as long routing. 4 flights back to back is hard in any class.

However, 24 or so hours later, I was £1000 or thereabouts better off and during my time away I periodically thought of the return. I had two small backpacks with which to take my most important pieces from my luggage if they insisted on sending it to ARN.

I didn't check in online. I went o the airport my usual 2 or so hours before take off. There is little of attraction in any Bangkok lounge to be honest.

I simply asked that my baggage be short checked to LHR only as I would not be travelling to ARN. No problems, a few taps on the computer later and I asked to check the luggage labelling to see if it really was destined for LHR. It was.

At LHR the luggage came out on the carousel and that was that.

So what did I learn ? well, certainly that in some countries, with some airlines, there is no need to go through the last leg and you can easily short check your baggage. Other airports in different countries and with different airlines will clearly be different.

Would I do it again ? I am not sure. Of course the price differential needs to be huge in percentage terms but in truth, I am hankering about the direct flights and when BA gets round to a 1-2-1 configuration on LHR-BKK then we might be changing our routing. For now however, saving £1000 for a day's discomfort is possibly just acceptable. I wouldn't for a few hundred but I would perhaps for a Swiss / Lufty First Class deal ?