Check-in At Home, Your Hotel Or At Work With Emirates (Dubai Only)

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Etihad offers the ability for passengers to check-in at various city locations in Abu Dhabi and you can check-in for various flights in downtown Hong Kong but Emirates has just gone one better – you can now check in from pretty much anywhere in Dubai.

Emirates has been piloting it’s “home check-in” service since October (I didn’t know about this) and now it’s rolling it out throughout Dubai.

Rather amazingly, the service allows you to check-in at home, your hotel or your office and have your luggage taken to the airport for you allowing you to make your way to the airport in your own time.

Once at the airport you can head straight to immigration without having to visit the check-in counters or pick up boarding passes anywhere – everything is handled at your chosen location.

The new service is available for customers booked into all cabins and is available for all Emirates flights departing Dubai.

Here’s how Emirates says the process works:

An Emirates check-in agent will arrive at the preferred location to weigh and tag the bags as well as check-in the customers and issue boarding passes.

The service seals each bag and stores them in a separate hold in the van [before transporting them to the airport].

That’s it. The next time you see you bags should be at your destination (hopefully!)

The home check-in service costs AED 350 per trip (~$95) and covers up to 7 pieces of luggage. A surcharge of AED 35 (~$9.50) will be charged for each additional bag.

Thoughts

Clearly this isn’t something that’s going to interest those of us who usually travel with hand baggage only but I can see this being tempting if you’re traveling like an Orange County housewife (which a lot of people living in or visiting Dubai seem to do).

I loved the option of checking in my bag in downtown Hong Kong last time I was in Asia as it meant I didn’t have to schlep my suitcase on the train or around the airport once I go there so I can see this new Emirates service being an attractive (if not cheap) option for some.

It’s probably not worth the cost if you’re traveling with one or two suitcases but a family of four with a suitcase each may find this useful…especially as it would probably save them from having to take two taxis to the airport.