Experiences with Luggage, International Travel, and More!

With the wonderful post Covid plites we have all endured we figured it was worth sharing our first hand experience with baggage to and from LHR (Heathrow Airport). Let us first start by saying we had a decent plan in place to avoid any issues on this trip to London, and for the most part our knowledge and planning lead us in the right direction. Unfortunately though with any good thought out plan there always seems to be a bump in the road or even a handful of little bumps.

Like we mentioned all in all the baggage, luggage or cases of ours didn’t really have any large impacts like many others you have heard or read about. Which we are fully grateful for, and will admit how we had to book our flights did not make it easier on anyone involved. 

Let us delve into that a bit. If you are reading a travel blog about baggage internationally you probably at one point had a travel credit or big stock of miles. Well we did as well, which lead us booking this trip separately between Delta’s leg (DEN to JFK) and Virgin Atlantic’s leg (JFK to LHR). This made the most logical sense to use our individualized travel credits with Delta and also transfer points efficiently to Virgin Atlantic for the Upper Class seats we wanted. 

Checking our Bags in DEN:

We assumed from past research that all would be fine since Virgin Atlantic and Delta codeshare most of their flights. Our assumptions were right that the flights were codeshared, but our first bump in the road arrived upon checking in to DEN. We were directed to the international lane with Delta as our final destination was international, but once to the attendant the confusion begun. Due to glitches with the Virgin app and also the printout of our tickets we were not able to provide the attendant our Virgin flight number. The attendant was new, pushy, and didn’t seem to know or want to help us so we ended up just shrugging our shoulders and giving up on the hopes of claiming our bags at our final destination rather than in JFK the re-check them. 

Snap forward to boarding in DEN. We decided that although it didn’t seem to work at the first attempt we would ask one more time. To our luck this attendant realized that the past attendant was most likely new and just didn’t give us the time of the day. She jumped through some hoops and next thing you know it was done. Bags were tagged down below to be transferred to our Virgin flight to LHR. 

Checking our Stroller:

Stroller/Buggy issues also did come up on the international leg. While at JFK we gate checked our stroller. Again thinking this was basic protocol. We unfortunately were told that we would not be able to grab the stroller upon arrival on the jetway like we have in the past. We don’t have full details on if this is always the case into LHR or not, but were told upon arrival that this was due to the labor shortage available at LHR. 

Collecting Our Bags in LHR:

The next bump came quickly and showed true to what the headlines were all writing. Collecting our bags was a part of the true fun. LHR is packed upon arrival, we get to the baggage/luggage claim and between each claim there are bags piled up from past flights throughout the day unclaimed. Rumblings about the crowd were some were waiting 1-2 hrs for the bags to come out. Announcements rang noting similar warnings of this wait. All of this ended up being true. 

There is not much more to add here other than resonating that the delays are real. We recommend being patient, grabbing some water, hit up the bathroom, really whatever you can do to wait it out and get your bags. Leaving them unattended is just adding to the problem and ends up being a lose lose situation for all. 

Departing and Checking our Bags in LHR:

We thankfully were able to utilize our points mentioned before and book upper class with Virgin. Part of the reason was to experience the upper class wing offered at Heathrow. The wing gives an upper class or Delta One flyer quick access to a dedicated check in desk and security line. From everything we knew this was a breeze for everyone in the past. 

We had a slightly different experience. The service level, promptness and friendly staff definitely was not any different, but unfortunately our bags became another hot topic. 

Once again the double confirmation/reference numbers brought up the fact that we would have to clear security then collect our bags, recheck our bags and go through security again. After ironing this out once in Denver, we asked for it to be looked into again here in the dedicated upper class wing. After our agent had to run downstairs ask about this and then also re-issue and ticket for Forrest we had easily spent 45 minutes waiting. 

Come to find out the upper class wing does not have access to redirect bags to another airline/confirmation code even with an airline that codeshares flight numbers. We had to eventually go down to the “normal” check in area and have a “red coat” do it for us. Of course once this was done the red coat made it look like a breeze on his end and thankfully the bags were tagged with the our final returning destination of DEN.

Actual Departure from LHR:

We would be a miss to not note this final hiccup associated with LHR and the baggage for our trip. While boarding our flight from LHR to JFK there was some standard delays noted for a few straggler passengers. On top of this we were notified that there was a slight delay of getting a baggage loading crew. We were again notified that there was a baggage loading delay shortly after the first announcement. After it was all said and done we were delayed departing LHR by roughly 2 hrs due to the baggage crew being delayed and short staffed. 

Bag Pickup from JFK:

Upon arrival to JFK we had very limited time to clear customs, grab baggage and catch our domestic flight. We honestly were a bit panicked even though we have had plenty of international arrivals under our belt. It may have been the fact we got a newborn with us or just the pressure of social media sharing the issues on baggage recently. We did clear customs with a little assistance of Global Entry and also the fact we had a newborn.

After clearing the customs we were rushed as the domestic flight was boarding within 30 minutes. We went to international baggage claim and there we watched plenty of other flyer’s grabbing bags from our flight. Within our panic we decided we better see what the Airtags showed to be sure the bags actually made it. Thankfully one showed it was in NY the other was still supposedly in London. Here comes more panic as you all could imagine when running late, having a newborn and now a possible missing bag. We refreshed the ipad over and over then finally ping one shows coming down the baggage belt and shortly after the second pinged as well. Both bags made it and although the Airtags didn’t update like we expected it did give us a better sense of security and understanding of where our bags were at.

Departing JFK:

Grabbing the bags ended up being the least of our worries though. We had to clear another domestic security with TSA, hey shouldn’t be a problem with TSA Precheck right. Oh wait JFK has their TSA lane closed. First hurdle begins, second hurdle follows as the TSA agents are giving mixed signals regarding our formula and if our newborn has to come out of his carrier or not. We planned and read in preperation for this and felt their was some training hiccups with this agents. One said our newborn had to come out of the carrier, her superior then said what are you doing he can stay in there and sleep. Well too late he is awake now. FACE PALM!

Secondly, the first agent in line stated all pre mixed sealed formula must be dumped out, we read otherwise, but we will see what happens. The second agent that seemed lost ended up finally getting to a station to test the formula but then didn’t note we had to dump it but rather just open every single formula to test it although it was sealed. We finally complied since we were on our last leg and the plane was now boarding.

We got through all of this and did make boarding, by the hair of chinny chin chins! The last but most comical part again was we had to wait for a baggage team to load this domestic flight as well. During this 1-1.5 hr delay we then had to wait in line to take off during the international redeye rush out of JFK.

All in all it probably sounds worse than it truly was, but for our first international flight in two years and including a newborn it made things pretty interesting.

Top Tips and Advice:

• First off if your gut believes something is possible, double check this day in age.
  • Due to covid a lot of new employee’s are rushed into their new positions and may just not know how to do every trick in the book.
• The new wave of AirTags or trackers that have been posted is beneficial but only so much. 
  • We got AirTags and read we could utilize our iPad to track them. Unfortunately it was not as efficient as we have seen others do with their IPhones.
    • Ensure your tracker syncs with your devices appropriately before traveling and understand the timing that it takes to update.
• Patience and timing is everything. 
  • If we did not book significant layovers and or arrive 2-3 hrs prior to departure we would have easily been rushed even more than we already were or just missed our flights all together.