Exactly my experience, both as a 1k and for same on OneWorld.

I have to admit that on my last several flights the priority tags have been working. ^

at iad i'd just assume take it off
 

if it weren't for the barcode id'ing your bad as belonging to a pax in a prem. cabin... i'd rip it off

i swear IAD bag handlers make sure to put these bags out dead last every time!!! IME that is

Domestically the tags mean NADDA!

^

You must be right, because guess who's bag was the first off the belt last Saturday in LHR?

Mine. I was so shocked and amazed.

I had good experiences with the tags on my recent trip ^.

Bags came off quickly ex SYD to LAX, first 10 or so.
A bit slower but still with other priority bags ex LAX to JFK. The entire plane's luggage was slow on that flight (of course we arrived at 11pm :rolleyes: ).

First few off at SYD (ex LAX).
Between JFK-LAX I didnt need to collect as they were connected through to SYD. So I was lucky that the bag arrived at all ;) ;)

Priority bag tags work!
 

I just flew ORD-SFO and back for the weekend on an XY saver ticket. Since I was bringing a friend a bottle of absinthe, I had to check a bag, which I never do. I was pleasantly surprised when the ORD agent put an orange Priority tag on my bag, and even more so when my bag was #5 off the conveyor in SFO. The same sort of thing happened on the return flight.

Is this new? I've gotten the Priority tags before but it didn't seem they actually did anything.

I think you just got really really lucky, or at least I wouldn't base any conclusive evidence off of two experiences.

So were all the priority tagged bags coming off the belt first?

Especially considering there are hundreds of counter-examples.

SIN seems to be the only place that priority tags consistently work.

I think that's the key question. IME, it's typical for some priority bags to make it off first. Just not *all*.

Of course, the trick is to actually get the priority tag in the first place. In SFO recently, I wasn't given one because the bar-code baggage tag had priority written on it. Shockingly, when we landed in SEA, my bag failed to come out with the priority bags. In fact, it came out just a couple of bags shy of being dead last. On the other hand, I got the orange tag on the return trip, and it was the very first off the belt - got some great looks for that :-)

Lets say there are approximately 300 pieces of checked bags.

Simple probability of getting any one of them within the 1st 10 is
about 3% (or 1 in about 30 flights - or 15 round trips)


I think you got lucky :p

It's all anecdotal of course, but I've found flights from BOS have a decent chance of priority tags working. I've seen BOS ramp have a separate cart planeside full of only priority-tagged bags, set aside. They load that after all the other bags. I've had consistently good luck BOS-DEN, including my bag being #1 on the carousel last week BOS-DEN UA465.

More typically, I've found my bags coming out in the first 10-30 bags. Not perfect but ok.

When they do the process right, it works. Like anything UA these days, there is a lot of inconsistency from station to station.

If it has the orange priority card, I've always had mine show up in the first few minutes. Anytime it isn't in the first group is when my bag was misplaced or put on an earlier flight. Glad it worked for you.

At least when it comes to SFO - I have to disagree. I would say 99% of the time if I have a priority tag on my luggage comes out first. I remember reading somewhere on FT that SFO makes it important to get priority tagged bags out first.