What happens if I forget to recheck my luggage on a connecting flight?

Most of the time, if you miss your flight, so does your bag. But sometimes your bag will make it without you. In those cases, your bag will fly to your destination and be taken off the carousel by the airline and wait for you to catch up to it.



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If your flights were booked under one ticket, your bags will be checked through to your final destination. If your flights were booked under separate tickets, you will need to collect your bags and recheck them before your connecting flight.

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In most cases, your bag will be checked through to your final destination. There are some cases when you will have to retrieve recheck your bags: going through customs on a connection. flying on different airlines that don't have an arrangement to share luggage processing.

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If you choose to miss your connection, let the airline know, as they will otherwise label you as a no-show and may cancel the rest of your itinerary.

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For international layover flights booked on one airline, two hours is often recommended to make your connection. For international flights on different airlines, the connection time will need to be even greater as you may have to change terminals between the two flights.

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Minimum connection times typically range between 30 minutes and two hours for domestic flights within the continental United States. For international flights, the range increases to between one and three hours.

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Is skiplagging illegal? No, but it's against most airlines' contracts of carriage or the rules people must follow to fly with the airline. American Airlines and Southwest Airlines both put skiplagging first on their lists of prohibited booking practices.

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While skiplagging isn't illegal, American Airlines filed a civil lawsuit earlier this month against Skiplagged.com, accusing the company of unauthorized and deceptive ticketing practices and tricking customers into believing they've gained access to a secret loophole.

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What happens if a flight is delayed and you miss your connection? If you miss your connection due to a delay, usually the airline is responsible for providing you with a replacement flight to your destination. They will have to book you on the earliest possible flight available.

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While, generally, the airline won't wait for connecting passengers, there might be some exceptions. If a flight is delayed, and there are many passengers who are connecting from this delayed flight onto the same connecting flight, the airline will hold the connecting flight for these passengers.

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Luckily, airline luggage is almost never lost, in most cases, it's just delayed. In fact, more than 85% of all airline baggage is just delayed due to late check-in, short times between connecting flights, or unexpected weather conditions. Only 3% of luggage is actually lost or stolen.

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If you checked a bag, you'll have to collect it from baggage claim from the international flight. You'll need to clear customs and immigration. Next, you'll recheck your luggage for the domestic flight. Finally, you'll need to go through Transportation Security Administration screening.

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Most (but again, not all) airports connect international terminals airside. When you're connecting from an international flight to a domestic one, you'll always have to exit and reenter security as you'll need to go through customs and immigration (unless you have gone through preclearance aboard, which is rare).

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However, the only time you have to get your checked bag and re-check it is when you have to go through customs and you have a connecting flight. You go through customs in the first country you land in.

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No, but it's against most airlines' contracts of carriage or the rules people must follow to fly with the airline.
  • American Airlines and Southwest Airlines both put skiplagging first on their lists of prohibited booking practices. ...
  • United Airlines and Delta Air Lines also prohibit skiplagging.


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It's not illegal but it does come with two problems: Most airlines will cancel your return ticket if you miss a portion of your itinerary. So if you intentionally skip your connection, you may find yourself without a flight home. Airlines can, and do, blacklist customers from booking tickets with them.

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But skiplagging is controversial, and many airlines frown upon it — so much that it can be punishable by miles or status cancellations and even a lifetime ban from the airline.

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It makes sense, because the practice saps revenue from them on two fronts: Not only do passengers underpay — potentially by hundreds of dollars per ticket — but the seat on the tossed leg also could have been sold to someone else. Most contracts of carriage from major airlines expressly forbid skiplagging as a result.

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To do this, he advises checking in online or via an app, instead of going to a kiosk at the airport. Then, unless it is something urgent, it's better to 'avoid speaking to airline staff' for the entirety of the journey.

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“The reason someone might try to utilize hidden-city ticketing is simple: People can fly directly to their destination without paying the direct flight price tag,” Going.com spokesperson Katy Nastro says.

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Not all the time. When you arrive at the transit point, you can often run to the connecting flights if you have a short transit time. The baggage, on the other hand, has to travel through the massive baggage handling systems to go for the connecting flights.

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So how long do you need? It's really hard to put an exact number on how long you need for your layover. At a minimum, I'd say you should plan for one hour for domestic layovers and two hours for international layovers. But this is not a hard, fast rule!

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Many airlines offer complimentary transit visas or VOA (visa on arrival) and hotel accommodations to transiting passengers with extra-long layovers. In such cases, they tag your bags to the final destination and you cannot reclaim them even if you wish.

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