T/S Checked baggage or carry-on only?

Reasons I will never check a bag: EWR baggage handlers lost two of my suitcases when I was in college (two seperate trips), I hate waiting around baggage claim carousels, I hate lugging around more than a rollaboard once I'm at my destination, and I get a perverse pride out of doing trips like 2 weeks in Australia out of one 18" bag.

I actually know a guy who's contracted with a few airlines who does that here locally. He does okay apparently. There's always lost luggage to deliver.

Recently I flew from Belfast to Halifax, and at both airports my luggage was happily floating around on the carousel by the time I got there. Flying from one small airport to another rules.

AIRLINES are now charging $25 for a second piece of checked luggage. wtf I do not want to pay your $25 whine whine whine whine whine whine whine

It depends on the airline - American is apparently charging $15 for the 1st and 2nd piece of checked baggage, and it looks like Alaska is charging $50 for the second piece.

Ryanair charges for each piece of checked baggage - but it's the same weight limit (around 20 kilos I think?) no matter how many bags you pay for. So even if you pay for 2 bags, if you're at 22 kilos total weight, that's 8 euros per kilo. Grr.

(er, per extra kilo)

I can't remember the last time I checked a second bag! Maybe never?

This is Fronteir & yeah, $25. My plan: I will pack a smaller suitcase inside a larger suitcase and if it turns out my return calls for a second suitcase, it will then be employed.

Has the single piece of carry-on luggage rule been relaxed now for the most part? Or did it only ever apply for certain airlines or countries?

I haven't flown much in the last few years and have played it safe each time, bringing only a single small carry-on bag, nothing like big enough to carry what I would need for more than a day or two, literally just a book or two and my camera stuff.

You used to be able to get away with a piece of luggage + a handbag + a bag full of whatever miscellaneous shite you bought in the newsagent on BA, but now I have learned to leave a space in my carry-on luggage to shove my handbag & newspapers into.

Since Easyjet started charging for hold baggage, we have been a lot more careful with our packing - if the two of us are travelling, we only check in one bag (if we can't fit everything into our hand baggage, but stupid restrictions mean we usually have to have a checked-in bag to cart home our cheap booze and take a proper bottle of shower gel with us etc)

BA is back up to a bag and a handbag for carry on again.

United is also doing this $15 for first bag bollocks as well.

I have to check one massive suitcase whenever I go home and it inevitably weighs about 51 pounds on the way back, 105 pound me always queues up behind some fat guy for subliminal 'me plus luggage weighs less than that morbidly obese man' vibes.

I had the best checked baggage experience ever today, by the way. My bags both off the conveyor and I was out the door within 10 minutes, usually I'm waiting half an hour or filing lost baggage claims! It probably helps that it was a short, direct flight and few people checked luggage. (Can't believe I had to check TWO bags...my stuff seems to have expanded in the last couple months, don't know how, and I had to check my regular carry-on and take a smaller bag I usually pack inside it on the plane instead. ARGH.)

(Of course, this means that Ryanair's policy of charging per extra kilo and not giving you extra kilos for checking extra bags is going to cost me about 10 times my airfare on my way out Monday. AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH.)

Oh man, your above statement TERRIFIED me for your country until you specified 'extra kilo.'

I have a hard time packing the luggages under 50 lbs, sometimes...home scales don't seem to be very useful for measuring luggage. I don't think the weight distributes properly as it is not a hu-man. Maybe I could hold the luggage while standing on the scale & then subtract my weight. Who knows.

Heading home from last Xmas, we had to redistribute all our luggage contents there in front of the scale, which made me feel inconsiderate to those in line behind me. I had received a bunch of heavy art books. I wld prefer to avoid holding people up this go-round. I have a feeling people will be giving us gifts up in Boise @ the wedding rather than mailing them to us in LC and lord knows how I'm going to fly home a Kitchen-Aid.

That's what I do at home, stand on the scale and subtract my weight. But when I'm moving around a lot and trying to minimize weight, I don't carry a scale in my suitcase, for obvious reasons. So last time I got charged for overweight baggage and the person at the desk said, "You're only one kilo overweight, why didn't you just pack one less kilo?" I did not know what to say! (Nothing polite popped into my head.)

Heavy books are the worst.

They're actually not supposed to charge for that little overspill as the scale may not be totally accurate, or offer you the chance to shift something (like a book) out of the case and into the hand luggage.

ryanair = cunts

15kg baggage allowance that you pay for, extra kilos cost extra, 10kg hand baggage limit that they weigh at stanstead ceo is a prize wanker and they are not noticeably cheaper than mainline airlines especilayy when you factor in charging for checking in bags, for non-online check in etc.

i just dont see how people can fit a week's worth of clothes into a carryon size piece of luggage. unless its summer and only packing tshirts and etc...

by "second bag" i meant two bags total in the hold; though i do try to get it all into a carry-on if i can -- phil the answer is "washing", try it sometime

i dont know. my mommy does that for me :( :(

i hate carrying on because i do not enjoy going through security with all my shit out for the world to see. also i'd rather be comfortable when travelling. i hate airports enough without having to drag luggage around and i am so tired of people jamming way to large items in the overheads, etc. it's annoying. this checked baggage charge shit is really making me angry for my upcoming trip... a thousand dollars in airfare and you can't just let me put the freaking bag on the plane free of charge?

At least it is still free for intercontinental flights.

What pisses me off is that they should just put the fares up, it's a lot more honest than this chicanery.

Yeah, a fare increase would probably have saved them the PR nightmare. Anyways, its hard to be really upset at airlines since they're bleeding money, and are pretty much in survival mode. If you think it costs a lot to fill up your Hyundai....

I'm trying to buy as many airline tickets for trips I know I'm taking in the future NOW before the prices start skyrocketing... Which they will.

That is a wise idea! Probably.

i don't feel bad for them. i feel like fares have been steadily increasing over the past few years as gas has... why should they get away with another sudden hike?

I agree ticket increases would feel a lot more natural and way less like getting nickel & dimed.

I don't care for overhead luggage at all, but I'm gonna bring it along again, just in casies. Like say if I get the entire works of Albrecht Dürer and a fantastic sheet of lead.

why should they get away with another sudden hike?

because if you want any commercial service at all, you'll understand that airlines can't be running businesses when they actually lose money on each ticketed passenger. Jet fuel prices have quadrupled since 2000, and on most domestic routes, they run at a loss even if every single seat on the plane is full.

I'm kinda an airline industry nerd... ugh

the industry is totally fucked.

phil have you ever seen pam ann? she does imitations of stewardesses of particular airlines (among other things) - for BA she just paws the ground with her high heels like a horse

hahaha just youtubed it. err, not sure how i feel about her chinese airlines one though.. wtf those slanty-eyed glasses!

yeah she's a little much in every respect

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/business/15bug.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

Packing as little as possible = classic. For 2 week trip in Europe, I'm packing a backpack and a duffel bag. All my clothing in the duffel, all my travel stuff in the backpack. Ideally, I'd carry them both on the plane (the duffel is tiny), but sometimes they make me check one underneath.

Packing as little as possible = classic.

Yeah, definitely thinking about that for the trip here in a few days.

Also Phil's point re: getting trips now before massive price spikes = good. I'm probably going to cross my fingers before locking in three more trips this year over the next few weeks. There is or was a big trip I wanted to do next summer but frankly I'm not holding my breath now.

Maybe President Obama will bring down the prices! O:-)

i have at least 6 trips til jan 2009. 2 to chicago, 1 to LA/Vegas (maybe PDX and SEA), 1 to Paris/London, 1 to Tokyo, 1 to Australia... any huge increase in fares is gonna be sucky.

United and US Airways now both also charging for first checked bags with the US and canada. How long before Delta North west and Continental fall into line?

If there's one great advantage of the iPhone, it's that I don't have to drag a laptop around with me.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Fuck you Air Canada. As if losing my baggage wasn't enough, yesterday evening you call me when you find it, telling me it will be delivered very early next morning. Unsurprisingly it doesn't, and so, when I have to leave tomorrow morning for five fucking weeks, thus in need of all the clothing and stuff that was in that bag, I end up spending the entire day trapped inside, only to get another call late this afternoon telling me they found my bag and that they will deliver it. Not to mention that I haven't been able to rest, do laundry, get to go downtown, or do the important errands I needed to do for tomorrow and hence will be paying, quite literally, for. As if you haven't fucked up enough as an airline. Not even the fact that you showed The Bicycle Thieves and The Wire on my plane rides redeems you. Fucking shit.

For that reason, carry on when you can.