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A few weeks ago I was flying out of London Heathrow’s Terminal 5, in Economy Class, and I encountered an “enhancement” from British Airways that I hadn’t come across before. Not only was this enhancement news to me but it also appears to contravene published OneWorld tier status benefits.
My American Airlines Executive Platinum status gives me “Emerald” OneWorld status which means that OneWorld member airlines afford me some useful benefits when I’m not flying on my primary carrier. Some of these include lounge access, advanced seat selection (in most cases) and the ability to check-in at the First Class desk regardless of what cabin I’m flying in.
Another one of the benefits offered is “priority baggage handling”:
Normally I don’t pay much attention as to whether or not a check-in agent puts a priority tag on my luggage as baggage handlers seem to ignore them at least half of the time. But there’s no harm in having them on your luggage just in case you get lucky.
On this trip I was keen to pick up my bags as quickly as possible at my destination (I wanted to get to a store before it closed) so, when I noticed the check-in agent at T5 about to send my bags through without priority tags, I asked her if she would put some on just in case it made a difference.
The reply was very polite but surprising.
Apparently it’s now British Airways policy to only offer priority baggage handling to those in premium cabins. Airline status doesn’t count.
What I was actually told went something like this:
I could put priority tags on your baggage for you but it won’t make any difference as the baggage is sorted by the barcodes on the regular tags and not by any other tag we attach. We only offer priority baggage handling to those flying in Club Class or higher so, as you’re flying in Euro Traveller, your barcode won’t be coded for priority handling.
I decided not to protest (I really couldn’t be bothered) and it didn’t matter in the end as the flight was so delayed I had zero chance of getting to the store at my destination before it closed anyway.
Nevertheless this does seem to go against OneWorld published benefits (as seen in the screenshot above) and makes me wonder what other OneWorld benefits British Airways will choose to ignore.
I would have put this down to an agent that doesn’t know the rules but I was checking in at the First Class area at T5 so I would expect an agent there to know what’s what.
Interestingly, on my return flight, priority tags were put on to my bags without any prompting and, as they were in the first twenty-or-so bags to come out of the hold I can only assume they worked (to my surprise). This could have been down to the fact that the outstation I was returning from didn’t have the ability to code the regular baggage tags in the same way that they can at Heathrow and the new (?) directive hasn’t filtered down to them yet…or perhaps the agent at Heathrow was making up rules.
So what’s going on?
Has anyone else come across this? Has this British Airways policy been around for a while and I’ve just not noticed or is it a new thing? Or was I just unlucky to get a First Class check-in agent at Heathrow who wasn’t up to speed on the rules?
