Help! Spouse just called. She's traveling now and was planning to use carry on and skip her connection. Airline made her check her bag at the gate through to the final destination (I don't know why. too big? no room?). If she skips the connection, any thoughts on how she can retrieve her bag?

SOL unfortunately

About all she can do is to actually fly the whole thing. If she doesnt fly the connection it will show up as a no-show on her Itin record. When you want to get the bag shipped however the Carrier will look up the Iten record and see she never flew the connecting flight. Could very be they will bill you for whatever it would have cost had you not booked the Hidden City.

Id say this time the Carrier won. Hopefully its not too far away. I assume she got to the gate late as today most flights are packed, and all the Overheads were full already.


I dont know if a Carrier will release the bag just to anyone, and the cost of a service to park a van get the bag and delivery to wherever isnt gonna be cheap.

Which itinerary? Which Airline?

Doesn't look good though - she should probably take the last flight, too if she wants to be sure of seeing her bag again.

Anyone have experience with the luggage forwarding services? If we overnight the claim check to them, could they pick up the bag in Atlanta and ship it to us? I suspect it would be cheaper than her completing the itinerary and buying a one way ticket back to Cincinnati.

I'd be worried that the bag gets taken off the connecting flight if the passenger is not on board. Who knows where the bag might then end up. Does she have a separate boarding pass and different flight number for the connection, or is she supposed to stay on board her original flight for the second segment?

I dont beieve they do Bag & Passenger match ups on a Domestic flight. I guess she could always try the sudden illness routine and hope they fall for it, and tell them she needs her bag and will pay for the night in a hotel plus whatever the fare difference will be for a flight tommorrow.If they check and then see shes a local well off bets are off, hopefully theres not alot of Miles in her acct.

Well, now we know another reason you should not do this...

Basically she is SOL. There is no way you can get the claim to one of those agencies before DL takes it behind the "counter" At that point they are going to figure out that she didn't make the plane and start seeing if she made ANOTHER flight. When it comes out she didn't as others have said "all bets are off"

And as others have said her bag may get confiscated.

Now, if it were me I would try ONE thing. I would go to the gate agent in CVG and throw myself on thier mercy. I had to do this years ago on Delta and they did relent and dig out the luggage and not charge me the Y fare, but.... no gurantees. Things have gotten tighter since then.

or try the I have things in my bag that Im suppose to give to someone here at CVG, they told me I would get my bag back at CVG there was no time at XXX for to to get a bag and put the items I needed to hand over to someone here at CVG out before we were going to take off. Or I have medication that is in my bag that I need to take , I forget to remove it when they took the bag at XXX

I had this happen a couple of times it meant dealing with a supervisor who then had to plead my case to the Baggage handlers. Each time I wasnt doing a hidden city only got to the gate very late and no room left in the bins, also my middle city wasnt a hub so .

I dont think Id go with the truth straight out, no one is looking to be axed from their jobs and 1000s will be laid off after the summer. If you get the wrong employee not only will you hear no way, but Im sure they will report what the passenger is up to to score some Brownie pts, as if they discovered it on their own

If she stops the trip in Cincinnati, and the bag goes to Atlanta, not only does she have the challenge of getting her bag, but her fare will likely be recalculated to the Cincinnati fare.

Well long ago and far away, my hub had a few cocktails in CVG and missed his flight to ATL, where he was meant to connect to PIT. He later sobered up, rented a car and drove to PIT. Of course I was left to figure out what to do about the bag. So I phoned DL, claiming to be the distraught mother of a "dim son", boy just don't have lick of sense. The next day the bag made it to PIT, gratis. Hey whatever works.

Hahahaha. That made me laugh out loud. Dim son, hilarious. Good job!

Always happy to share the utter hilarity of my life!

Yup. Never a good idea to bring much of a carry on if you're planning to do something like this. If travel was via a regional jet, that's just asking for trouble.

Off the top of my head, I'd claim to be buying some kind of whisky at the desired destination and that it will have to be packed into the carryon as checked luggage at that point - we all know the rules for liquids and we can't be too careful about security these days... And I wouldn't trust baggage handlers with a loose bottle - it needs to be well protected in the clothes in the carryon.

And I'd have made sure the hidden city connection was an overnight stop away from the desired destination giving me a stronger and more plausible argument for needing the luggage at desired destination.

the pity to this thread is we probbaly will never from the OP again, while we tried to help as much as we can, the OP could have returned the favor by posting what happened in the end. Meaning did she try to get the bag back, what did she say, did it Work?

That would be a great way to have paid us back so that we would have some info for ourselves should any of us or anyone find themselves in the same sit