[thecopy]

When checking luggage you lose significant time upon arrival, at least in Europe. From gate i can be on the train to the city in 10 minutes without checked luggade. With it is probably 30minutes.

[rtkwe]

Gate checked luggage comes to you on the skyway not at the luggage claim. Takes a little bit there but it's faster than normal checked luggage.

[mithr]

> Gate checked luggage comes to you on the skyway not at the luggage claim

That's not a given. At least as many times as not, I've gate-checked luggage and had to pick it up at baggage claim with everyone else.

[jsmith45]

There are two types of gate checked bags. Proper gate checked bags get the full sized label that all other checked bags get, and are fully in the system, and if nothing goes wrong gets spit out at your final destination on baggage claim, like normal checked luggage.

Valet Checked bags use pink/red tags and are supposed to be returned on the jetway. It is supposed to be impossible for these bags not to be returned planeside, and are not supposed to get intermingled with the normally checked baggage. In practice I've seen this not work out first hand, with the bag ending up in baggage claim. (I've seen others say the same thing happened to them too. I suspect some airports actually have baggage handling set up to check for these if they get "into the system", and forward them to baggage claim, as the safest option.)

[zimzam]

This depends on the airport/airline: I’ve had gate checked luggage that was unloaded to luggage claim instead of the skyway.