There are plenty of major, yet RJ-heavy stations that still require pax to line up inside the jetway to wait for their bags to be delivered. EWR, LAX, some SFO, DFW, LGA immediately come to mind. This will be a tangible benefit if executed well.

Yup. I always board last on express flights.

Now this is a change I WILL REALLY LIKE!!!!

I hope these actually come this time, I was really excited when pmUA trialed this but it never made it to the whole network. If they do... ^^^^

Being based out of COS and flying back/forth to DEN generally 2x per week on my way to other destinations, this would definitely be a benefit, but probably more in COS where they hand you your bag on the jetway as they are offloaded than in DEN where the RJ terminal uses a cart delivery system where all of the bags are loaded on a cart and either wheeled to the tarmac where passengers are waiting (for turboprop planes) or placed in the "elevator" that lifts the entire cart up to the jet bridge level.

As a 1K who flies COS-DEN a bunch, the trial worked great at COS, and about 1/3 of the time they were front and center on the cart at DIA. I was bummed when they discontinued it and an angry Skywest gate agent ripped it off my bag after the trial stopped.

Nice enough idea....I have no confidence in the pathetic UAX contract staff to implement it with any level of consistency or accuracy.

Great idea. I do gate check on RJs and hate that 5 minute wait to pick up your bag. At least I should get it off first.
Assuming the luggage tags are actually being used to determine which bags to offload first.
Experience domestically for checked "Priority" bags has been generally unfavorable - internationally I've had good experience most of the time.

Not really. If a flyer was issued a luggage tag in a previous year (due to earned status), and then was not GS/1K this year....you really think that they would remove their tag? :cool:

some have had issues with the staying power of the UA elite tags.

Given today's announcement about spend requirements to reach elite status, I don't think UA will need to buy very many tags. ;)

I like this only if the Priority tags will actually mean something.
I've had priority tags on my checked bags for years now, and 50% of the time, they come out first, the other 50% of the time, it doesn't really make a difference.

Whoa - whoa - whoa - These new gate check tags are only half the equation. As others have pointed out, this only really benefits locations where you wait in the jetway for the bags to be thrown up one or two at a time. But in order for this system to work properly, there needs to be an exclusive 1k/GS waiting area in the jetway so that we can get to our bags first without having to bowl over the others standing in front of us. How about some ultra-classy blue "red carpet" rugmats that only 1k/GS are allowed to loiter on while waiting for bags? Or maybe we can make all the kettles stay on those cramped RJs until after our bags have been presented to us - kind of like deplaning by boarding group as well! Now that I'm thinking about it, there are those two pairs of conveyor belts traveling each direction at ORD between B and C - we need to insist that they make the inner belts going each direction as 1k/GS only!!! :p :p :p

They don't stay...

Insider tip - get AA status, take one of the two rubber (much higher quality than UA) tag holders they provide, and use it for your UA tag :D