Cracks in the Checked-Bag Fee Policies?

Delta waives fee for some AmEx cardholders

Beginning on June 1, Delta Air Lines is waiving the fee immensely unpopular fee for the first piece of checked luggage checked for most people who carry the Delta-affiliated American Express Gold, Platinum and Reserve SkyMiles cards. Delta and other major airlines have these co-branded card arrangements, meaning that cardholders typically earn one frequent flier mile for each dollar they spend using it, not only for air travel but for other purchases as well. Most airlines airlines do not charge their premium frequent fliers for first checked-bag. Delta reportedly earned $215 million in baggage fees in the first quarter of this year, leading some people in the industry to speculate that American Express paid Delta to waive the fee for cardholders.

Other possible "cracks"?

• JetBlue's current one-day 10th-anniversary promotion charges $10 for all remaining seats on flights tomorrow (May 11) and Wednesdays (May 12). I've never flown JetBlue and don't know whether they customarily charged for checked bags
• Frontier's present Whole Enchilada sale is a fully refundable Classic Plus fare that includes two free checked bags and other extras.
• Southwest does not charge for the first two checked bags, No way. No how. At least not yet.

Beating the Checked-Bag Blues

Airlines' pay-to-play policies affect ski-vacation travel budgets

It is impossible to travel light on a ski trip. Ski clothing and other winter outdoor clothing and footwear are bulky. Ski and snowboard equipment is both bulky and awkwardly shaped. Since last ski season ended, most airlines have begun charging for checked luggage on domestic flights. Most US carriers began imposing a fee for the second checked piece, which was bad enough for skiers, but they levied fees even for first checked bag, which is bad for all travelers.

Skiwear and other winter clothing mean one checked bag per person. Most experienced skiers take their own boots, even if they rent skis. A pair of boots just about fills a carry-on that will fit into the overhead, especially the teeny space on smaller regional aircraft that often fly into mountain airports. A separate boot bag, even if stuffed to the gills with clothing, counts as a second checked bag.

Take your own skis or snowboard, and that’s checked bag number three. The one bright spot is that one ski or snowboard bag and one boot bag still count as a single piece of luggage, as they did in the days when airlines accepted two pieces of checked luggage without charging. This amounts to bad news for skiers heading for their vacations.

At this writing, most airlines charge $15 for the first and $25, but United gets $50 for the second checked bag. The first bag is free on Delta, and the second costs $25. Don’t plan on taking more than you need. The third and subsequent bags are $80 and up each.

These baggage charges are for the entire trip, not per leg if you are changing planes. Fees for overweight bags have also skyrocketed, so don’t think that buying a team ski bag or hockey gear bag and stuffing everything into it will save money. It won’t.

Premier members of airlines’ frequent-flier programs and those seated in premium cabins in the front of the plane are generally exempt from these surcharges.

Southwest is one major U.S. carrier that so far does not charge for up to two checked bags. The airline also does not charge for curbside baggage check-in, a real boon when a lot of gear is involved. Southwest flies to the ski gateways of Albuquerque, Boise, Denver, Manchester (NH), Salt Lake City and Reno/Tahoe. A change of planes might be necessary, but low fares and absence of surcharges make it worthwhile.

In Colorado, Steamboat and Vail Resorts’ four destinations (Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Vail, plus Heavenly, California) are helping skiers out with a kind of subsidy to take the sting out of the baggage surcharges.

There are still a couple of weeks to tap into Vail Resorts’ Baggage Bailout that gives a $50 credit to guests who book at least a four-day, four-night ski/snowboard vacation by December 1 through Vail Resorts Reservations (866-949-2573). The offer is valid for any qualifying vacation through April 20, the end of the ski season but most be booked by phone.

Steamboat’s Bags Fly Free offer nets a $25 American Express gift card from the resort per booked seat – plus 20 percent off on lift tickets and lodging on early-bird bookings of lift/lodging packages of at least four nights. The vacation had to have been booked though Steamboat Central Reservations (800-922-2722) by November 3, but with this ongoing economic slump, late-booking skiers hold out hope that this or another kind of rebate will be revived. When combined with the resort’s pioneering Kids Ski Free program (children under 12 ski and stay free one-on-one with a paying adult), Bags Fly Free can really pare the cost for a family.

If you will visit any of these resorts (again, Beaver Creek, Keystone, Breckenridge or Heavenly several times this winter) and don’t like to be bothered with your skis at all, consider a RentSkis.com season pass for unlimited ski/snowboard rental. The cost is $359 per adult ($459 for performance gear) and $199 for kids 13 and under.

Air Canada imposed and then rescinded checked-baggage fees and now allows each passenger to check two bags at no charge. Calgary and Vancouver are the major Canadian gateways to ski country. Others are Montreal, Quebec City, Edmonton, Kelowna and Canadian Rockies Airport (Cranbrook). Transatlantic still have a two-piece free baggage allowance, and international airlines also consider skis/boots as one piece, which can take some of the sting out of a European ski trip.

Some skiers are willing to pay more to avoid hassles, especially when flying to small mountain airports where planes are often weight-restricted. That means you might reach your destination, while some or all of your checked bags follow – often the next day.

Options include shipping bags via FedEx, UPS or a dedicated door-to-door luggage pickup and delivery service. Sports Express, which is headquartered in Durango, Colorado, has a particular affinity for travel to the mountains.

Yet another option is to rent skis. Ski Butlers is a ski/snowboard rental operation with a difference. The service delivers top-quality, well maintained skis and snowboards directly to your accommodation in 25 North American resorts, adjusts your boards to your boots and picks it up at the end of your trip. That saves both the expense of taking your own equipment the hassle of going to a rental shop, filling out forms and standing in line to get your gear -- and then at the end of your vacation, trekking back to the rental shop to return the equipment. Their slogan is "Never Stand in Line Again."

None of this, of course, is carved in granite. Domestic carriers, which don’t need to file their tariffs with regulatory agencies in advance, hit travelers over the head by imposing fees for checked baggage, and they might turn on a dime and change them too. With a soft travel market, the possibility of lower jet-fuel prices and sluggish reservations, they could drop the fees – or other resorts could follow Steamboat and the Vail family and offer a credit to ski vacationers. The only thing certain about the 2008-09 season is uncertainty.

Luggage Pilferage

No valuables taken, but petty theft is annoying and (again) shows travelers' vulnerability

Yesterday afternoon, I flew from Houston to Denver. Two bright red TSA-approved locks were on my checked bag’s two biggest zipper compartments when I checked in. When I got home, I saw that the bag sported only one lock.

Is it possible that I didn’t snap one lock completely, and that it opened and fell off in transit? Yes, of course. Is it possible that the small bottle of tequila in a sturdy little cardboard box given to all somehow fell out of the middle of my bag? Unlikely. It could have been either a TSA screener or perhaps a baggage handler, or for all I know, a space alien who likes tequila and used its super powers to find mine.

According to Aero-News, a TSA screener at Newark International reportedly was recently arrested for trying to sell pilfered items on eBay. I’m not saying that my little tequila, given to all convention attendees, will end up in an on-line auction, but I’ll bet it ends up in someone’s drink -- or simply as a straight-from-the-bottle nip for the needy to make a boring job tolerable.

Newsday reported that TSA spokeswoman Lara Uselding had said that 465 TSA officers (0.4 percent of the agency's workers) have been terminated for theft since May 1, 2003. The odds are pretty good that nothing will be swiped from checked bags or from carry-ons during the shoes off/jackets off/laptop out/X-ray/metal detector pre-flight gauntlet passengers endure, but when it happens, it's annoying at best and devastating at worst. When expensive electronics (including laptops and other communication devices with private information) or jewelry is taken, it can be be more than the loss of something as inconsequential as a small bottle of tequila.

Am I going to report it? No. It's not worth the bother. The TSA and/or airline baggage-handling operations seem to be the gift that keeps on taking.

Travel Gear: The Best and Worst of the Year

Travel writers' evaluations of 2009's winners and losers

Practical Travel Gear published a short list of the best and worst travel items for 2009. There were, of course, good suggestions for tote bags, clothing and miscellaneous accessories, and some on the "worst" list that made me laugh out loud. Contributor John Gordon wrote, "Some things I just don’t understand, like Planesheets for covering airline seats. Besides the dubious claims of cleanliness, I’d just feel a little weird being the only passenger on the plane sitting in a zebra-stripe seat." I've got to agree on that one, though in this age of swine-flu fear, I suppose there are travelers who feel more protected by temporarily slip-covering their airplane seat in washable or disposable covers -- butt-ugly as some of them are.

No one asked me, but I'd include among the best those TSA-approved luggage locks. They're not new, but neither is Ex-Officio travelwear that the site praised. I've always wondered about unlocked bags both as invitations to pilferage and as ways that someone behind the scenes at an airport can make anb innocent traveler an unwitting mule for smuggling contraband. I'd include noise-canceling headphones, not new either but invaluable on a small, noisy airplane or a long flight on any plane at all. And finally, I'd include those not-new-either inflatable neck pillows, which are great now that airlines have become chintzy with little pillows. I like to sleep on planes and appreciate the comfort.

TSA-Approved Laptop Bags

Metal-free laptop cases should ease airport security hassles -- but the TSA continues its relentless intrusive ways

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Also, see "Fliers Cheer Laptop Policy Change" from USA Today, August 15 issue, published after I wrote the following report about one of these approved cases.
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First came TSA-approved luggage locks for checked luggage that the Tansportation Security Agency can open but that theoretically others who might wish to riffle through bags. Now from Pathfinder Luggage comes Checkpoint Friendly Compu Brief, a laptop carrier bag that has reportedly been redesigned in accordance with TSA instructions, without metal, zippers, closures or labels that could obscure the view of the computer as it passes through X-ray screening apparatus. The company says that they have tested it California's Ontario Airport and were able to see a clear view of the laptop.

Preorders of the two initial designs, briefcase (estimated at $120-$125) and wheeled ($150-$200), are being accepted at 800-759-9738. In addition to these bags, Pathfinder says that they are developing a fashionable, lighterweight version for the female traveler.

This new product will mean one less thing for laptop-toting flyers to deal with as they remove their shoes, belts and jackets, take keys, change, iPods and cell phones out of their pockets, and drink that last sip of water. However, it will be no solution at all for the Department of Homeland Security's new regulation permitting them to confiscate laptops from international travelers, keep them however they wish, copy information from hard drives, analyze it with forensic software and in other ways trample travelers' civil liberties.

TSA Intrusions Continue Anyway

In a new blog post called "No ID at security: Fast-track to a government “list”? Either way, why are we bothering?," Upgrade: Travel Better details all sorts of reasons not to fly anywhere, convenient new computer bag or not, domestically or internationally, if it involves the TSA. The agency has reportedly been storing personal information from all sorts of government documents about thousands of air travelers who might have forgotten their "government-issued ID" or perhaps had a wallet and driver's license stolen. I you are in that situation, Upgrade: Travel Better notes that "you’re now required to answer 20 questions about your personal life [that] is disturbing. What does this have to do with airplane safety, exactly?"

The blog further notes:

"The TSA has yet to provide an adequate explanation for how checking identification actually enhances security. Yes, there are some bad people who want to blow up planes. But if you actually search them before letting them onboard, then they should be able to walk into the airport carrying a Mickey Mouse Club membership card
and a smile and that should be that. Cockpit doors are locked, pilots have guns,
and passengers aren’t about to take crap in the sky. But you’ll
never get a straight answer out of TSA for why ID checks are necessary for domestic
travelers."

Hear! Hear!

Personal Luggage Scale Saves Money and Check-In Hassles

Draconian checked-bag and overweight-bag fees call for cleverness -- before you leave home
Domestic airlines have seemingly been in a race to see who can impose the most aggressive fees for checked bags -- policies that I and other observers have howled over with outrage. It seems that airline passengers are now traveling lighter, only with carry-ons when possible. Southwest, the rare airline that still checks two bags free for domestic flights, seems to have been a beneficiary of these new policies.

But the majority of flyers travelers are booked on other carries, and many of us want to avoid or minimize checked-bag fees whenever and however we can. Balanzza has come up with a simple, hand-held digital luggage scale that you can use to weigh your bag before you leave home (or before you return home with your purchases) to make sure that no single piece of luggage moves into the overweight-bag zone. The scale itself weighs less than a pound and can weigh bags up to 100 pounds.

Strap the device to the handle of your bag, lift it, wait for the beep, put the bag down and read the weight on a digital screen. If you need to repack, you can do so before you get to the airport. Two models are available -- one that designed to be lifted with one hand, the second with two hands. Either one costs $24.95.

Travel Blog Offers Dozens of Packing Tips -- Mostly for Women

Months before airlines put the hammer down by levying baggage charges, a blog called Travel Hacker ran a piece called "The Art of Packing: 44 Tips to Save Space, Time and Keep Your Organized." While it does not specifically address such issues as minimizing the number of bags to be checked or keeping the weight down on those bags, some of this advice does help with packing strategy.

These tips are overwhelmingly geared to fashion-conscious women travelers. Number 6, for instance, reads, "If possible, try to pack only one sweater and/or jacket for your whole trip. Unless you’re going to Paris Fashion Week in the winter, you should be able to get away with sporting the same outerwear for a few days. You can jazz up your outfits with different accessories to keep your look from getting too tired out too quickly. You’ll be saving yourself a ton of extra packing space, so you can stock up on more fun items like shoes and shirts. Even better if you decide to wear or carry your jacket on the plane instead of forcing it into your luggage." But if that describes you, take a look and see anything that might help you pack lighter, smarter and better.