One thing that is gradually becoming more common is being allowed to check your baggage in the night before your flight. The Irish airlines have been doing this for years, with Aer Lingus introducing the service as far back as 2013.
The advantage for passengers is quite straight forward. Since the early morning is one of the busiest times of day to fly, you completely avoid the queues. Going straight to security without the long check-in line is lovely… as is not having to heft all your bags!
Check-In The Night Before With British Airways
People flying British Airways may check-in their luggage the night before. As of August 2022, this is available at London Heathrow Terminal 3 and Terminal 5 for those flying before 10:00 the following day. You can head to the airport to surrender your bags between 16:00 and 22:00 the day before.
It is also available for those departing from London Gatwick airport. You need to be flying before 13:00 the following day and you can drop your luggage between 18:00 and 21:00 the evening before.
This is also available at Edinburgh airport, between 4pm and 7pm for flights departing before midday the next day. You can drop off bags for other people travelling with you, but they must be on the same booking and you must bring their passports and travel documents.
The other great market for this is the families with children. Get all the bags gone the night before and you can avoid the hassle of having both them and toddlers in tow. The British Airways web site shows the information formally here.
Overall Thoughts
I’ve checked my bag in the night before once with Ryanair. I just decided I couldn’t face any type of queue in the morning, so decided to try out the service. Naturally it worked a treat, and I’d use it again if I had baggage and a flight in the morning.
Have you ever used the overnight bag drop service with any airline? Did you find it took the hassle out of things or is there a downside I haven’t mentioned? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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All images via British Airways, featured image by Stuart Bailey.
With thanks to London Air Travel.
Flying to Tampa, U.S insist on LFT no more than 24 hours before departure . I was merrily thinking, great, I’ll get rid of my bags at South terminal, head to north terminal where Express testing is situated and also hotel. Didn’t think it through… obviously you need to download negative tests before you can check in. So a lot of dragging baggage around! Don’t make my mistake!
Ugh, that sounds terrible! Yes, you do need to do all the tests to be able to check-in. Hopefully this requirement will be dropped sooner rather than later for flights to the US. I headed back from the US to Ireland and as all requirements have been dropped, it was lovely not to have to complete anything at all.
[…] British Airways will let you check a bag the night before your flight […]
Great idea although I personally tend to avoid BA where possible due to fuel surcharges and very poor business class seats within Europe. You mentioned that terminal 3 was not covered. Can you say a bit more about about terminal 3 flights?
You’re missing a trick there, I find BA to be extremely good value. I recently purchased Dublin-London-Dublin for under €90. Their Club Europe is also one of the better business class propositions within Europe. Terminal 3 is a shared terminal and not exclusive to BA. I imagine it has an older baggage system which is incompatible with having bags wait overnight.
This is smart business. We’ve had two 6am flights in the past couple of months, and when traveling with kids and ski gear, it’s a big challenge to get everyone up, out the door, and through baggage check in time (especially at the holidays). You have to pay to park instead of taking Lyft or similar transport. Even on your return, why go through the hassle if you don’t have to. Checking bags the day before would help a lot.
That’s exactly the thing I can see people wanting to avoid, especially at holiday season. I’m sure it will prove to be popular enough once people know about it. Thanks for the comment!