Oneworld boosts Emerald and Sapphire luggage benefits

It seems the oneworld airline alliance has boosted some of its benefits for those of us who check luggage in when flying around the world.

oneworld’s tiers are :

• Base
• Ruby (lowest elite tier)
• Sapphire (the mid-tier)
• Emerald (the top tier)

Today’s changes are for Emeralds and Sapphires.

Emeralds will now get Priority Luggage handling on any cabin on all oneworld carriers – except British Airways, along with an extra 20kg bag on their ticket (except again on British Airways Hand Baggage Only Tickets).

Sapphires get a better deal with the introduction of extra baggage allowance on their tickets (which previously didn’t exist). There are some variants to the system:

• International and Domestic Itineraries using the weight concept of baggage handing will get an extra 15kg of luggage on a ticketed economy allowance
• International itineraries which contain domestic legs that use the piece system, its second bag time free of charge up to 23kg when a baggage allowance of one bag is allowed
• Domestic itineraries will allow one bag at 23kg free of charge (except on British Airways Hand Baggage Only fares, and LAN where two bags may be carried up to a combined weight of 23kg)
• Priority luggage handling on oneworld itineraries (again, except British Airways).

Well, it’s a bit of a rough deal if you’re a oneworld member flying on British Airways and expecting priority baggage at Heathrow (then again… priority luggage and Heathrow Airport…. nope. Don’t go together in the same sentence). However, across the rest of oneworld, there are some decent benefits.

A shame that other alliances got there first with both Star Alliance and SkyTeam offering extra luggage and priority luggage handling as standard for some years.

But still, better late than never as some say. For me,  if I was to lose my Emerald status, it would not be such a hard fall as it was previously when I lug some my mad luggage around the world.

And as I’ve said before, taking luggage aboard a plane is not a sin amazingly.

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