V-Flyer

I am flying from Manchester on a BA flight connecting on to my Virgin Atlantic flight to LA X at London Heathrow. I booked my flight through Virgin Atlantic but was wondering will i need to collect my bags in terminal 5 and take them across to terminal 3 to check them in again or should B A check my bags straight through to LAX. Thanks

Are all your flights booked on one booking/PNR number? If so then the agent at MAN should be able to check your bags all the way through.

If you either booked them separately, or they have different booking references then you will have to collect and re-check your bags.

BA used to get all Diva-ish about this, so suspect not. Even with BMI we've always picked them up and re-checked. Mainly to reduce risk of them not being transferred. The walk with a trolley isn't that bad.

depending on your transfer time, i'd be tempted to collect & re-check them yourself.

Then all you need to do is ignore flight transfers, exit T5 & take the heathrow express to heathrow central & its a 2 minute walk from central to T3 departures

If this is all one itinerary then they ought to check them right through to LAX, but they may need some gentle persuasion. Personally I would much rather do this than collect and recheck them at LHR -- but I can see that others differ.

Neil - not that I'm an expert on transfers, but my most recent experience was a Cathay flight from Manila to HK, with VS onward to LHR. The flights were booked seperately, through different corporate travel agents, no common PNR, itinerary, anything. But the Cathay check in agent didn't bat an eyelid when I asked for my bag to be checked all the way through.

Thank you for your advice. I have just checked my Virgin E Ticket and it is all on one itinery with the one reference number. We have a 3 hour connection time so I will check the luggage label making sure it has LHR then LAX on it for the bags and if so will rest easy that it should get to my final destination.

Thanks again

Like NH said, BA used to be all diva-ish and refused to check them through but when doing AMS-LHR-SFO last year I was more than surprised to see that they had checked me through all the way from AMS. I'm another who prefers the collect and re-check although I much prefer the through-check on my return flights for some reason

3 hours should be absolutely fine. As you say, just get your bags checked to LAX at Manchester so there aren't any worries there. Then when you land at T5 follow the purple flight connections signs, which will take you to a bus transfer to T3. Then you'll be in T3 to pick up your VS boarding pass.

What class of travel are you in on Virgin?

Travelling PE

If you're concerned about the PE priority luggage benefit working when you get to LAX, you may wish to collect at T5 and re-check at T3.

I wouldn't be too confident that the barcode applied to the bag by BA at MAN would put the bag in the 'priority' bin on the VS flight.

You might be able to plead with them to put an orange 'priority' tag on the bag if you can prove that this is a benefit of VS PE (e.g. show them the website print out). This worked for us when we flew with American from Tampa to JFK before VS to London, the bag ended up in the priority bin.