get me my coat in Heathrow!

December 10, 2016 8:46 AM

I left my coat in Johannesburg at a conference last week. Another colleague at the conference has kindly offered to bring the coat to Heathrow, which she will be in on Monday from roughly 8am to 11am. I am flying through Heathrow myself a few hours later, should be around 2pm-5pm when I am there. It's the same day, but we don't overlap. How can my colleague get the coat to me?

We will be in the same terminal (both flying British Airways, so we should go through terminal 5).

Things I've already tried:
1) asking the BA lounge (which I get access to through my American Airlines status) if they're willing to hold onto it for a few hours. They didn't even believe I knew the person who would bring me the coat and flat out refused.

2) changing my flight into Heathrow to be earlier. There is one early enough that we would have overlap, but I have not been able to contact BA to see about a change and the system won't let me do it online.

3) There is a left luggage counter, but then the problem is still present: they say "No, Person B cannot retrieve luggage left by Person A. This can only happen if the depositor hands the ORIGINAL TICKET to the collector. Items cannot be collected without the original receipt ticket received by the depositor from us at the time of deposit." Then we'd have to pass off a ticket and not a coat, but we'd still have to pass it. Also this is non-ideal because I'd prefer to minimize effort on my colleague, and she would have to go through immigration and enter the UK to get to the counter.

Lastly- whatever method is used really should be certain to work- the temperature when my flight is going to land in Michigan is expected to be -5C.

posted by nat to Travel & Transportation around Longford, England (28 answers total)

Response by poster: quick update: got through to BA who say 400£ to change flights. There has to be a cheaper way.
posted by nat at 9:01 AM on December 10, 2016

You could try posting this in Jobs and see if a local MeFite can help you.
posted by Too-Ticky at 9:14 AM on December 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Do you know if you/your colleague will have to stay airside, or will you be able to come out through the gates into the public parts of the airport during your layover? If you will, post on Mefi jobs for someone to collect the coat from your colleague and wait in the airport with it until you arrive.

On preview: I would imagine it'd be cheaper than £400 to buy a cheap down jacket for your trip and have your original one mailed to your home.
posted by penguin pie at 9:15 AM on December 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Oh, and if having to buy the cheap jacket annoys you, donate it to a homelessness shelter once you no longer need it, and looks on it as a seasonal charitable donation.
posted by penguin pie at 9:17 AM on December 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: I'm hoping to get significantly less than 400£, for what it's worth. (I was hoping for free... or the cost of a beer for my colleague)..
posted by nat at 9:26 AM on December 10, 2016

Is there an express mail service? My impulse is to ask your colleague to Fedex it from Heathrow to your destination in Michigan, and for you to get a cheap temp. jacket until yours arrives. Costs money, but less than BA is quoting.
posted by blnkfrnk at 9:33 AM on December 10, 2016

I wonder if there's an airside lost-and-found. If there was, your friend could bring the coat there and say "Someone left this behind," and you could go there a few hours later, say "I lost my coat," describe it in detail, and get it back.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:54 AM on December 10, 2016 [21 favorites]

Could your associate stop into the BA lounge, casually leave the coat on the coat rack, and you just pick it up later? Odds are nobody would even notice it's there.
posted by COD at 9:56 AM on December 10, 2016 [13 favorites]

i have no memory of heathrow but if they have any food vendors have your friend offer one 20 quid to hold onto the jacket for you and then call/text/email you to let you who has it... maybe even say "here's 10quid now and my friend will give you another 10quid when he picks it up"
posted by noloveforned at 10:22 AM on December 10, 2016

Try calling these people and see what they say? The "Heathrow Concierge" service. They seem to advertise meet and greet services but may be able to help you or give advice.

Heathrow Upgrade

My other thought was trying to ring the BA lounge again and hoping you end up speaking to someone more sympathetic; or, failing that, ask politely to speak to a supervisor.
posted by peanut butter milkshake at 10:25 AM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Dear God, please don't leave your jacket deliberately unattended or try and pay food vendors to hold onto it. Both have the potential to turn into security alerts, or at the very least ruin the day of service workers/police who have to work out how to deal with something that might be a security risk. If I was a food server in an airport, and someone asked to pay me to take possession of a coat that they were leaving behind, I'd be straight over to tell my manager, who I'm sure would be straight on the phone to the police with a description of the person in question.
posted by penguin pie at 10:30 AM on December 10, 2016 [19 favorites]

I would either have my colleague "forget" the coat in the BA lounge and you can turn up to "remember" it later OR have them scotch tape the original left luggage receipt underneath a specific table somewhere.
posted by bimbam at 10:48 AM on December 10, 2016

Do not try to do this in the sneaky ways suggested above. Airports kinda have cameras now and are sorta kinda uptight about one person secretly dropping luggage for the other one to find! Unless you wanna miss your connecting flight because you're sitting in an interrogation room, just try the lost and found thing or the concierge thing.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:01 AM on December 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Just called concierge, they won't help (can't hold onto luggage without the person who gave it to them). They suggested the left luggage people, who don't answer their phone, and who are annoyingly outside security anyhow (in addition to explicitly stating what I want isn't possible).
posted by nat at 12:05 PM on December 10, 2016

Do either of you have a friend/relative/colleague in London who'd be willing to come out to Heathrow to get the coat from your colleague, and either hang out for a few hours or leave and come back in time to give it to you? (Obviously, you should compensate them for any transport costs and offer to buy them a coffee or something for their troubles.)

Otherwise I second the suggestion to post to Jobs to see if a London Mefite would do it.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 12:17 PM on December 10, 2016

I'd try tweeting at BA or calling / bugging them again about the lounge drop off. The coat will have been through security, you're both BA passengers, how can they justify making a fuss other than "we don't want the hassle"?
posted by ClarissaWAM at 12:26 PM on December 10, 2016

(I mean, if I were working there, I'd find "We don't want the hassle" would be a pretty solid reason to stay away from the whole situation. Airport security is serious business, handing off items to other passengers who aren't traveling with you is explicitly Against The Rules, and the answer to "Hey, would you break this security-related policy as a personal favor to me?" is pretty much always going to be "No," even if the policy feels silly and the favor feels harmless.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:01 PM on December 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

Have the coat Fedexed from SA to your hotel in Michigan?
posted by beagle at 1:12 PM on December 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

There is no sure way to do this because of the very real possibility that your colleague's flight is delayed or cancelled. Miss your window and she has to lug the coat to her destination, then figure out how to mail it to you. Just have her mail it to you now.
posted by mama casserole at 1:17 PM on December 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

And then have someone meet you at the airport with another coat, since as you say, it'll be -5C when you land.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:50 PM on December 10, 2016

Some BA flights go to/from T3 as well, so there's a chance you may not both be at T5. Although your colleague's offer is very generous, I'd just pay to have it FedExed/DHLed out to you.
posted by evoque at 3:16 PM on December 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: The FedEx cost from SA is also several hundred (US) dollars, so that's not really a great plan. (And packages go through customs and could take longer to arrive than I have).
posted by nat at 3:25 PM on December 10, 2016

Airportr are a service that picks up your bags in London and delivers them to the airport for you to collect - maybe your colleague can give it to them at the airport and they can handle it like a bag waiting for collection?

The flyertalk BA forum might also have some suggestions.
posted by penguinliz at 3:43 PM on December 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Does your colleague also have access to the BA lounge? If so, after they've been in for a while, have him/her take the coat to the front desk saying "somebody seems to have left their coat laying around, probably they'll come back for it." Then you come in later and ask whether anybody turned in a coat...
posted by oneaday at 4:24 PM on December 10, 2016

Can you skip the colleague-and-airport-section entirely, and find out what the conference center or hotel can do for you? Do you belong to any professional organizations that might offer discounted shipping services?
posted by furtive_jackanapes at 4:34 PM on December 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Seconding posting on Flyertalk, which will have many people deeply familiar with every BA Lounge in Terminal 5. I did a quick search and saw a LOT of threads about leaving stuff at T5 and the merits of various BA lounge cloakrooms, so if there is a solution, they will know it.
posted by acidic at 7:07 PM on December 10, 2016

Check your MeMail if borrowing a coat in Michigan would help.
posted by SandiBeech at 7:39 AM on December 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Unless colleague also has status or is traveling in business or better, she won't be able to get into a BA lounge.
posted by praemunire at 12:18 PM on December 11, 2016