TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Leaving tomorrow. Quick question.

Waaah! We are leaving tomorrow at 8:00 am. I have a question as I have never checked a bag flying before. Coming here I checked the bag in Charleston and picked it up here. I did not have to retrieve it in Miami.

When I check it here does it go all the way to Charleston or do I have to retrieve it in Miami? We are on American Airlines but with a layover in Miami, same as we did coming.

Thanks

After going through Immigration, you will have to claim your bag and proceed through Customs and then re-check it to your destination.

Thanks for the quick response. Glad we have a 1 1/2 hr layover....

Good luck. Not to alarm you but an hour and a half on a Saturday anywhere isn't a lot of time to claim bags and clear immigration and connect to your next flight although I suspect things may move a lot faster that early in the day but if our one and only experience returning via Miami is any indication, you'll need every minute to do this.

Enjoy the end of your island time........

If you use the mobile passport app, you can clear C&I in Miami in 20 mins. Thats including waiting 15 mins for your bags to come.

And you will have to go through TSA security after you drop your bags off too.

What is a mobile passport app?

See: Mobile Passport App

does JFK have a mobil app line?

No, only Miami, Atlanta, Chicago-Ohare, San Francisco, Seattle currently.

Thanks for reminding me about the Mobile Passport app. I downloaded it a while ago and at that time you could only use it in Miami.

We are transiting through the US on our trip in December and it should work for us as we enter through Seattle on our way down and through Atlanta on our way home.

OK thanks

Thanks Harry, wish I had known about this on my last few trips!

Wilson and Harry,

Thank you re the mobile app information and I can only hope they add JFK soon to the list of participating airports using the app.

And to clarify my original post, we only traveled through MIA once a few years ago and everything there seemed to be under construction, and no one seemed to know anything about the airport when you asked. It was a disasterous arrival and departure and we swore, "Never again!" And though I've heard things have greatly improved, we have been able to avoid it for our trips to date since that one and only experience.

The only really good thing about our relatively close proximity to NY and JFK is there are three major airlines serving SXM with nonstop flights, so like the add says, we really do have choices. Not bragging, just sayin'.......

By this time, the ORiginal Poster has probably already cleared MIA and I sincerely hope it went well for them. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" />

Just as an update we were met at Miami with a wheelchair escort for my mother. That did not get us to the head of any lines as there was ample room in the queues for the wheelchair but it was very helpful to have the escort as it would have taken us awhile to figure out where to go and what to do.

Unless you knew ahead of time there was no instruction as to what was needed to be done and I saw several travelers wandering aimlessly asking passersby what they should be doing. As it was our escort lined all five of us up and ran us through the passport kiosks (when did that start?) through customs, to get our bags and put them on the next conveyer, etc.

While I had downloaded that mobile app and scanned my passport, my husband's, and my mother's and had us all set to go my son and his girlfriend were not concerned enough to do it so I have no idea if it would save time. The signage for the mobile app was pointing down another hallway and I did not see anyone going down that hall or see the actual area so have no idea of the potential time saving.

The customs guys were really easy going and quick.

Even so, due to the law of landing at one end and flying out of the other end of an airport , it took us 1 1/2 hours from exiting the one plane and arriving at the gate of the next plane. However it probably slowed us down having 5 people being processed.