We are leaving on a trip to Israel, and flying British Airways, using miles. Our itinerary has us arriving at LHR at noon one day, and then leaving for TLV at 8 the next morning. I am assuming we pick up our checked bags when we arrive and then re-check it the next day, but want to be sure. Since we will be on BA the whole time, and it is one trip, we don't know if they just keep our bags and put them directly on the flight we are taking the next day. Has anyone had experience with this situation.
Thank you.
Caroline
Posted by
Everett, WA
1300 posts
We flew from Paris to Boston and had a similar schedule (arrived about 3 PM and left the next day at 6 AM). We had to pick up our bag and take it with us to the hotel. Our friends went from Seattle to Africa with an overnight in Amsterdam. Same thing, They had to pick up and re-check the bags. The real bummer was they had to pay the bag fee twice, which really didn't seem fair. They were taking lots of stuff to their family in Tanzania, so had 2 checked bags each. We did not (even though it was a domestic flight that normally would have had a charge, we got to check 2 bags for free from Boston)
Posted by
Green Bay
21222 posts
Depends on the airline. Two years ago, returning to Chicago from Duesseldorf on Aer Lingus, we had an over night in Dublin on the way home. We had two checked bags, one of which contained items that we had to show to get the VAT refund in Dublin. Since Dublin was the point of exit from the EU, that was where he had to have the items available for inspection. They gave us the option of that bag to be collected in Dublin, and the other checked through to Chicago. So even though we cleared US Customs and Immigration in Dublin, we did not see the other bag, full of dirty clothes, until we got to Chicago.
Your mileage may vary.
Posted by
Edmonds, WA 🌨 ☂
11948 posts
Did you ask BA what happens with the luggage? Customer service: 1 (800) 247-9297
They are much more likely to know what they do with it, than anyone here.
Posted by
2 posts
Hi. I use to work for BA. No they will not put your bags thru to the flight the next day. You will have pick up the bags and check them in the next day. I have a suggestion though. If you look up London Heathrow and look at Left Luggage, you can store your bags right there at the airport. I have done this several times.
Posted by
California
494 posts
BA is our airline of choice. They have been keeping our bags overnight at LHR as long as the layover is less than 24 hours. At least that's our experience as of January 2017 and several times before that.
Posted by
Cincinnati, OH, USA
768 posts
Maybe our experience is the outlier, so take it or leave it. We recently returned from a two week visit to the western Mediterranean. It began with a 9 day cruise and concluded with 5 days in Barcelona. For 5 of the 9 days of the cruise we were without luggage. It happened this way. We booked a flight from home to Boston from where we would fly to Europe. The flight we booked to Boston had a long, but not unreasonable, layover. However, the airline cancelled the flight we had booked and put us on a much, much earlier flight that resulted in a 12+ hour layover in Boston. We checked our luggage from home to Boston and on to Paris and Nice (our destination). When we checked the luggage we asked if the 12 hour layover would result in any hiccup regarding the luggage. The answer was "no, it will be fine". They were wrong.
We can't say with certainty that our luggage never left Boston when we left, but what actually happened is still a mystery. It goes without saying, in the future, if we have a super long layover or a next day layover, we'll retrieve our luggage and re-check it. Not that this will guarantee anything, but we'll at least know where the "weakest link" was (as seemingly the airlines did not in our case).