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British Airways offering ‘overnight bag drop’ at Heathrow Airport

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British Airways is now publicising the fact that you can check in your bags at Heathrow on the day before you fly.

Take a look at this page of ba.com.

Whilst it has only just been added to the website, it appears that this has been quietly offered since last Autumn to anyone who turned up and asked.  British Airways has now decided to make it an official part of its service.

British Airways offering 'overnight bag drop' at Heathrow

Here are the times it is available, plus times for Gatwick and Edinburgh where it has been offered for a while:

Heathrow Terminal 5 – check-in between 16.00 and 22.00 for flights departing before 13.00 the next day

Heathrow Terminal 3 – service not available

Gatwick South – check-in between 16.00 and 22.00 for flights departing before 13.00 the next day

Edinburgh – check-in between 04.00 and 20.00 (18.00 on Saturdays) for flights departing before 09.30 the next day

It is not available at any other airport at present.  Whether it rolls out further will depend partly on take-up but also on the ability of the airport to handle luggage which is checked in early.

PS.  If you missed it, take a look at our recent article on the top 10 reasons why you may want to apply for the British Airways American Express credit card.


How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

Nectar American Express

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

American Express Platinum card Amex

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express card

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Comments (183)

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

  • Mark says:

    Used twilight check in at LGW twice last autumn; definitely made the process of getting an early morning flight with a toddler much easier!

  • Ansy says:

    Clubrooms Luton seems to want £15 not £10 for me to reserve a place using my priority pass…

    • TGLoyalty says:

      Yep £10 for clubrooms Upgrade from PP and £5 reservation fee this would be the same regardless of what type of No 1 lounge it was.

    • Lady London says:

      Getting into not-worth-it territory even for Luton…

  • Andrew says:

    O/T I signed up my kids for the Red by Dufry/DragonPass deal, but they don’t have their own mobile phones yet.
    Will screenshots of their barcodes saved to my phone be ok to get us into a lounge?

    • Shoestring says:

      should be OK, on day 1 of the deal here ISTR somebody sending a screenshot to his mate, who successfully got into lounge

  • Nick says:

    OT is anyone else a RBWM resident? They now offer a paypoint card for CT – officially they say it’s ‘cash only’ but does anyone know if/how it’s enforced (e.g. – purely hypothetically of course – at the co-op)? I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this… just wondered if anyone else has got there first and can offer advice, particularly about what they do with direct debit, etc.

    • mark2 says:

      IME that depends on the person behind the counter at the time. I have very rarely been reused, and just go to a different PayPoint.;

    • Andrew says:

      Hmm, according to Eton Town Council:-

      “PayPoint will accept payments via cash. A debit card may be accepted in exceptional circumstances and is purely at the discretion of the retailer who may insist on a fee to take that payment. We therefore advise that PayPoint is cash only.”

      “Retailers Discretion” – I suspect that means if you go to a main branded outlet, they won’t care.

      • Shoestring says:

        hopelessly out of date anyway as it’s illegal to charge a transaction fee now

        but that’s just the council trying not to pay the credit card fee, try any old credit card incl Amex & it works fine for CT at most Paypoints

  • Tanya says:

    42 minutes waiting to get through to BA. Total joke. the 0191 number doesn’t even allow you to wait, it just has an automated message and then disconnects. BA need t urgently address this

    • Roberto says:

      You may be aware but there is rather unusual Weather and Virus issues currently… Not a normal day, a business cant scale up to cover these massive issues overnight.

    • Lady London says:

      Only 42?

      Try a number for them from another country. Even if it goes to same call centre it’s possible you could find yourself in a shorter queue. Use Skype or similar to save cost of calls to intermational number.

      • Lady London says:

        PS Watch out if you are holding on the phone waiting to be answered for anything getting close to 1 hour. Around then BA has often played me a message about being busy and cut me off.

    • ali says:

      I always use the “if you’re calling from overseas, call +44…” which is typically local rate and covered by inclusive minutes

  • TripRep says:

    Pretty cool one for AV Geeks

    0.86 Mach relative to air flow.

    https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/british-airways-sets-new-transatlantic-speed-record/

  • Lumma says:

    Luton clubrooms was terrible when I went. Apart from coffee and cake it’s all waiter service and I really struggled to get any!

    • Lady London says:

      Was that recently @Lumma?

      Early reports were all bad. Especially with the Aspire Lounge at Luton closed for renovations till March, was hoping perhaps Clubrooms might have got over their teething problems?

      • lumma says:

        It was September. Staff were actually getting a group of 4 loads of booze (like two drinks at a time) and taking selfies with them, whereas the solo travellers were getting ignored. I even asked once for a glass of red with about a quarter of a bottle of beer left and was told “as soon as you finish that I’ll get you one”. Didn’t see him again

    • Jody says:

      I agree, have done them twice there, and I have to say I actually prefer the Aspire lounge!

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.