International checked bag charges.

[Peter Stock]

Dup of a FB post.

Way back in the day one of the (many) selling points of a Bike Friday was that it flew for free. None of those outrageous surcharges for checking a bike box as check luggage.

In fact you could amortize the purchase price of a Bike Friday in $40, $75 chunks each time you travelled with it.

But then in 2008 American had the bright idea of charging extra for all checked bags. 

So there was the domestic market shot (though a suitcased BF is still less $$ than a bike as "sports equipment")

Fine  that still left international flights.

In 45 years of flying internationally I have never been charged for a first checked bag. Never.

Until last week.

It seems the flight search engines have figured out a new scheme to get your money. They have (in collusion with certainly the airlines) dreamed up a whole new fare category. Economy Lite! Which does not include a checked bag.

The trick is that a fare from A to B shows up a couple of hundred dollars cheaper in the search results.

And rather than be skeptical (I mean there is no reason Expedia should have a better price for a certain flight rhan anyone else) because you are foolish and cannot imagine baggage surcharges in a major airline international flight (after 45 years of frequent travel) you book that one.

Only to get dinged at the airport for $75 each way for a bag.

Fool me once, shame on me 

Fool me twice - not gonna happen

peter stock
toronto canada

[Keith Adams]

Certain "low-priced" North American carriers have been playing a variation of that game for a while.  They advertise a fare that's low enough to get to the top of the listings but when you go to book you're confronted with additional charges for a set inside the plane.  ANY seat.  And since there is no Standing Room Only section you're stuck.  But at least you learn that before you complete the booking.

Suffice it to say I'll never be a patron of theirs, as I object to their gaming the system in that nefarious and duplicitous and vaguely unscrupulous fashion.

[Peter Stock]

You're kidding. Aren't they required to seat you even if you don't get a choice seat? Or a seat of your choice?

That seems impossible.

But i can update my earlier post to add that.my experience on my return flight (with TAP) was even worse.

I was "only" forced to pay $75 CAD (about $50 USD) on my outbound. Returning i was whacked with $85USD (about $145 CAD)

Outrageous IMO.

And, maybe not surprisingly, a number of my fellow passengers with whom I spoke were similarly gouged for a first checked bag

peter stock
toronto canada

[Keith Adams]

" Aren't they required to seat you even if you don't get a choice seat? Or a seat of your choice?"

Quite so, and they do.  They just don't roll that "cost" into their advertised fare at the outset.  Here's how their game is played:

1: They advertise a fare, but do not disclose at the outset that the quoted price- which is low enough to push their listing to the top when sorted by "price" lowest to highest- only gets you as far as the cabin door.

2: In a later step in the booking process, you MUST select a seat.  ALL seats, including the least desirable ones in the back of the bus next to the toilets, carry an additional charge.  You cannot complete the booking process without selecting a seat.  However, that minor detail is not made clear in the initial listing of search results.

2a: Their seat prices, even those in uber-ultra-basic sub-sub-sub-economy class, raise the overall cost of the fare into a range that is much nearer to their competition.

3:  Oh, you want to bring something with you?

3a: You want to put it in the overhead bin?  That costs extra.

3b: Oh you want to check a bag (or bags) as well?  Cha-ching!  You'll need to pony up a bunch more cash for that privilege as well.

Step 3 is a game that many, if not most, of the airlines have implemented so I don't regard the offending airline to be any more underhanded and nefarious in that regard that the rest of the industry.  It's the seat pricing thing that really set me off.  I dislike the extra cost for luggage but I guess I've grown accustomed to it.  They could, after all, simply raise their advertised price but once one airline games the system by not doing so then the others are pretty much obliged to follow suit or get crushed in the marketplace.

[Tony Raven]

https://youtu.be/-6zIYPAKoyU

[Keith Adams]

Hee hee hee.  And utterly correct.