[Greg]

Last week I flew from LHR to MRU, conservatively arriving at Heathrow T5 3 hours before departure. At the Club check-in area there were 6 desks open for Business, and 6 for VeriFly. Only one family in front of us as we approached the latter and were enjoying the lounge 15 minutes after our taxi dropped us off.

It can be a nightmare travelling these days, but credit where credit is due.

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Nickberry

[DavidSmith2]

I will do my best, but the reality is that you can only use Verifly to fly from the UK to 29 destinations as it stands. Of course that includes the US, which accounts for a lot of traffic, but it is still a faction of global traffic. For those of us flying to the other 200 or so destinations, it remains of no practical use.

The balance of check-in desks was actually 8-6 in favour of Verifly desks for us a week or so ago and the queue for non-Verifly took about 90 minutes to snake its way to the desk. That is no way for BA to operate check-in at T5.

So yes – I agree with you in principle, but I do hope that the range can be expanded in the coming weeks before I have my next Accra-London trip.

[AlanOrton1]

I appreciate this is only relevant to GCH / OW Emerald, however, I don’t think from my experience last week that the LHR T5 check in desks here are differentiating from those using VeriFlY or not.

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Catalina, Polly

[Tom Otley]

After a year two years like we’ve had, I’ll look on the bright side whenever asked to, but VeriFly hasn’t worked on any of the routes I’ve flown, even when I’ve been sent an email beforehand reminding me to use it.

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Catalina, DavidSmith2, ASK1945, Polly

[Gold-2K]

I flew to USA on BA flight number operated by Aer Lingus via DUB. While both airlines use VeriFLY it seems code share flights are not supported. I tried using the Aer Lingus flight number instead of the BA codeshare but didn’t match the booking reference so no joy. On the way back direct from US to U.K. VeriFLY was fine although checkin was a nightmare as it seems most people were relying on manual checks – not the best with a completely full A380 and a lot of extra work for the ground crew of course. C’est la vie.

[Swissdiver]

Two experiences only:
GVA: The agent checked the app; it was green; all good. Fabulous!
DUB: The agent did not trust the app and asked me to produce one by one all the evidences. Annoying.
Both on BA…

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Greg, Catalina

[Stormin]

It seems that when flying from regional airports (via London) the regional (non-BA staff) don’t know about VeriFLY because we were asked for hard copies of everything at Edinburgh last wek when flying to Edi-Lrw-Dxb.

A bit frustrating and waste of time

[MarkCymru]

That’s odd. I’ve taken a few Aer Lingus flights in the past four weeks and every time, they’ve looked at Verifly at the gate (I only had cabin bags) and waved me through. I was very impressed. On a trip back from London, Randox (Owen Patterson’s employer) were so disorganised that they gave me a PCR instead of the lateral flow that I’d booked and paid for. The email arrived and I didn’t read it carefully; I uploaded the QR code and Verifly noticed that I’d said it was antigen but that, in fact, it was PCR. I re-uploaded it with no problem. @gold-2K is right, though, BA and Aer Lingus have never got their act together on code-shared flights (you can’t book Aer Lingus seats on the BA system, for example) and it doesn’t surprise me that they’ve continued the chaos into the COVID era

[Tom Otley]

As a recent comment (by Ken on the review of the Verifly piece) reminded us, we do give a lot of personal information to Verifly, which is not the same as giving it to any of the airlines we fly with (through FFP).

https://go.daon.com/alaskaair-privacy-policy

This is what I wrote in May of 2021

How does it work?
The Verifly app aims to be a digital checklist of what you need to fly from one destination to another.
Before Covid, you could imagine an app like this having a list you would check before you travelled. It would include (perhaps) ‘passport’, ‘visa’, or ‘Yellow Fever form’.
Today, because of the new regulations to fly, the list is more complex, but still, what the app does is list what you need, and then encourage you to upload those documents.
Before getting on to what the app is like to use, we should consider data security.
The airlines which use Verifly are very clear that they do not hold the data that you upload, and do not have responsibility for it. To take BA’s disclaimer as being typical…..
“The Verifly App is completely independent of British Airways and you are submitting your information directly to Daon (acting as the data controller), please check Daon’s privacy policy and terms and conditions.”
In relation to the US attestation and associated metadata only that information is collected by Daon (acting as data processor) on behalf of British Airways and is subject to British Airways’ privacy policy.
British Airways will not share your booking information with Verifly. You remain subject to British Airways’ Terms and Conditions of Carriage which are applicable to your booking, including in relation to denied boarding for failure to meet country entry requirements.”
The data is held by Verifly, or rather the company behind it.
“VeriFLY is a third-party travel readiness app, provided by Daon.”
Data security is something we are all very aware of. There will be people reading this who do not want to upload yet more personal information into yet another app. I can’t make any recommendations on this. I am not an IT specialist, so am not able to judge the security. Verifly says (on privacy):
“Verifly’s privacy-centric design ensures the user’s data is secured and only used for the purpose and period of time required to satisfy travel requirements. Moreover, Verifly users will maintain strict controls over how, when and with whom their information is shared. You can view our complete privacy policy here.”
You can also read about it on the Daon website. They use something they call IdentityX.

“All data uploaded to VeriFLY or through http://www.ba.com is not retained by either organisation and is purged post travel, unless a government requires specific information to be temporarily kept for attestation or contact tracing, in which case it will be safeguarded for a limited time strictly in line with GDPR laws.”

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RomP, Greg, MartynSinclair, ASK1945

[Greg]

Thanks to everybody for contributing to my original post. As an update, I returned from Mauritius last night after completing the VeriFly requirements. At checkin I was just asked to produce my passport and the “OK” given by VeriFly – and that was it. Off to the lounge in record time.

I appreciate its not to everybody’s liking, but I will certainly use it whenever I can.

Special thanks to Tom for pointing out the info re Daon. Most interesting.

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DavidSmith2

[LondonAndy70]

I’m due to travel tomorrow using a “letter of recovery” to the US. Verifly seems to only accept test results so I guess I can’t use it….

[peter]

I received a text from BA around registering for verifly- produced everything it asked for a flight to Toronto. Used the verifly desk at T5 however still got asked for hard copies at the bag drop desk ! What’s the Point !

[ASK1945]

[postquote quote=1196800]

Exactly.

[Craig]

We flew to and from Miami over the last 10 days with British Airways and although initially the VeriFLY was a little challenging by uploading the documents manually we were able to have these approved quickly. The BA bag drop for Club World in Miami said that it made such a difference that we had used and it literally took no time to drop bags and we were not asked again.

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ASK1945

[peter]

Came back from Toronto yesterday with BA – completed the VeriFLY app as requested to get to the airport and find the VeriFLY desk closed now I know I can use any desk ! However advertising something then not following it through !!

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ASK1945

[Author]

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