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United Will Personally Valet Your Luggage For $349

October 23, 2009 at 4:40 PM | by | Comments (0)

We're beginning to suspect that United has a full time brainstormer working on ways to monetize people's luggage issues. Hot on the heels of their $249 "free" baggage offer, the airline is offering door-to-door overnight shipping of anything passengers want sent ahead. The only caveat is that the service costs $149 per flight for trips less than 1,000 miles and $179 for flights that go over that.

The Wall Street Journal, discussing the new scheme, refers to United as a "pioneer" in imposing baggage fees. We sometimes muse similarly, though instead of "pioneer" we use what our therapist calls "anger words." Here's what the WSJ exactly said:

The nation's second-largest airline by traffic plans Wednesday to launch a next-day luggage service designed to raise fresh revenue while giving passengers a more reliable way to ship stuff without schlepping it through an airport. The UAL Corp. unit -- pioneer of the fee for second checked bags on domestic flights -- is teaming with FedEx Corp. The two will offer in the continental U.S. door-to-door, overnight delivery of suitcases, golf clubs and other items the airline normally would transport in the bellies of its jetliners.

The partnership involves working with FedEx—customers can also drop off their packages at Fedex locations—and delivery by 4:30pm the next day is guaranteed. All very convenient, except for the part where you have to arrange everything in advance and rely on one more person to show up on time for a pre-flight appointment. As if we don't have enough trouble playing that game with the Supershuttle van.

United focus-grouped this idea and the main benefit people identified was not having to drag their bags around the airport. Fair enough. Our solution to that is to pack light, but apparently other folks have other solutions. Other $358 solutions.

In other baggage-related news, Air France is upping their fees on checked bags again, to $50 leaving the States and 50 Euro leaving Europe, and that's just the first checked bag! Happy Friday.

[Photo: Yoshi / Wiki Commons]

Related Stories:
· Travel Options by United: Door-to-Door Baggage [Official Site]
· UAL to Offer FedEx Bag Service []
· Baggage Fees Coverage [Jaunted]
· United Coverage [Jaunted]

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