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Tags: Baggage Fees / Airline Fees / United / Checked Baggage Fees / → All Tags

United Will Personally Valet Your Luggage For $349

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:

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Virgin America Launches Refundable Main Cabin Tickets With 'Hangover Clause'

Virgin America, the California-based airline that paid too much for their ubiquitously-plastered slogan "on a mission to make flying good again," is launching a new class of fully-refundable, fully-transferable flight options. The "Main Cabin Refundable" fares will obviously cost a little bit more but, in addition to allowing you a wide range of ticket changes, they come with perks like checking in a bag for free (no small perk these days). This is basically a travel insurance-plus fare.

Main Cabin Refundable tickets are fully refundable up to the literal minute of departure. Ditto for transferring the tickets to a different name. There are no blackout dates, no minimum or maximum stay requirements, and no advanced purchases required. They really seem to be going out of their way to make these fares usable and attractive, even refunding the differences between old and new tickets to your credit card.

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Tags: Checked Baggage Fees / Baggage Fees / United / Airline News / Airline Fees / → All Tags

United's New $249 Checked Baggage Fee Equals Instant Loyalty

United Airlines is launching a new program that allows passengers to buy their way into Premier Baggage, essentially offering customers the opportunity to pay the airline's exorbitant baggage fees in one lump sum. Instead of United's unreasonable per flight fees, customers now have the option of paying $249 for a year-long fee waiver on their first and second checked bags, plus the bags of up to 8 companions traveling on their confirmation code.

We honestly can't make sense of this move. Anyone who flies United regularly enough to make this worthwhile already gets Premier from their miles. For this to make sense, you'd have to fly more than 15 times a year and check a bag every time. Unless you're just hop-scotching from LA to Vegas—in which case why are you flying United and why are you checking a bag—that easily gets you to 25,000 miles.

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Tags: Checked Baggage Fees / Baggage Fees / Hawaii Travel / Hawaiian Airlines / Airline News / Airlines / → All Tags

Hawaiian Air Adds $10 First Bag Fee, Tells Customers 'Fees Here To Stay'

We're running out of sarcastic ways to blog about new airline fees. The latest comes from low-cost carrier Hawaiian Airlines, which announced yesterday that they're adding a $10 fee for the first checked bag on interisland flights. It is what it is. And look how charmingly the announcement was made:

Mark Dunkerley, president and chief executive officer of Hawaiian, said the airline makes $20 million to $30 million a year from ancillary revenue — mostly from checked bags — and that baggage fees are here to stay as long as airlines need that revenue.

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Friday News: Southwest's WiFi Plans, VA's Bag Fee Hike, and Continental's Shifting Blame

· Hold your horses; Southwest is still keen on in-flight WiFi
A press release today announced that Southwest is continuing on their route to outfit their entire fleet with in-flight WiFi from provider Row 44. "The airline has been testing the service on four aircraft since Feb. 2009 and has received fantastic Customer feedback on the product." Curious if your Southwest flight will have in-flight WiFi? We tell you how to find out here.

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Tags: Lost Luggage / Baggage Fees / Airline News / Airline Hell / Luggage / → All Tags

1.8 Million Bags Were Lost In 2008; Where Did They All Go?

Do you swear that the airlines have it out for you and so manage to lose your bags 9 times out of ten? Well, you aren't all that special since lost baggage is still very much an epidemic, and Andrew Price, the head of the International Air Transport Association's Baggage Improvement Program, can attest to this. He not only has his own bags lost or delayed much of the time, but it's actually his job to see that this doesn't happen.

Poor Mr. Price; he just admitted this embarrassing fact to the Wall Street Journal and they've used it as a jumping-off point to take a deeper look at the barely-turning cogs behind international airline luggage movement:

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British Airways Reduces Bag Allowance In Economy Class

Baggage fee hikes continue as this British Airways announced that beginning October 7, international passengers flying economy will only be allowed one free checked bag. The previous, pretty standard way of international checked luggage was to allow each person two checked bags, but now that second will cost ya.

On British, economy class is called "World Traveller" and "World Traveller Plus," and these are the only classes affected. Flying Club World (business) or First Class will still yield the massive allowance of three free checked bags on international flights.

So why the change? British Airways, like many other recession-hit carriers, is smarting from heavy losses and looking for new revenue streams, or in their words: "to address the economic downtown and better reflect changing customer trends." Those changing customer trends might be all in their heads, however, as the LA Times notes that BA's major competitors of Virgin Atlantic and Air New Zealand are still allowing passengers two checked bags.

Related Stories:
· British Airways reducing free baggage allowance [LA Times]
· British Airways Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: caribb]

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American Airlines Needs More Cash So We'll Pay More To Check Our Bags

Apparently we are in the middle of a fee fiasco. Delta and Continental just slapped us all with another $5 for checking a suitcase at the airport, and now American Airlines wants to get in on the fee-for-all as well. They’re upping their first and second checked baggage fees by $5.

Now your first bag will cost $20 to get under the plane’s belly, and the second bag will be $30. These new charges begin for tickets purchased on or after August 14, so you only have a few weeks to save a couple bucks on your next trip.

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Delta and Continental Slap Checked Baggage With An Extra $5 Fee

The airline fees just keep keeping on, and Delta's newest surcharge for baggage checked at the airport isn't so much shocking as it is frustrating. Starting now, Delta has instituted a charge of an extra $5 for checking your baggage at the airport, versus checking in online and telling them virtually that you have checked baggage.

To check a bag online will cost $15 for the first bag and $25 for the second, but if you don't check in until the airport and check your bag then, you'll pay the extra $5 to lift those fees to $20 for the first bag and $30 for the second.

For the average traveler, there will be many wallet-hurting surprises at the airport, as we can barely keep track of all the new bumps in fees. For instance, United made this same decision to add $5 to checked bag fees if done at the airport back in mid-May, and Continental didn't follow up with joining in until this month. The moral of the story? Check in online, avoid having checked baggage if possible, and always carry some extra cash for airport incidentals, like pesky surprise fees.

Related Stories:
· Delta adds $5 surcharge for bags checked at airport [Today In The Sky]
· Delta announces $5 surcharges for bags checked at the airport [BizJournal]
· United Reaches Higher and Higher With $5 Baggage Fee [Jaunted]
· Baggage Fees Coverage [Jaunted]

Tags: Airline Hell / Baggage Fees / Air Jamaica / → All Tags

Air Jamaica Now Charging $25 For a 2nd Bag That You Can Pick Up A Week Later

We've regularly noted, and with something less than full satisfaction, the trend toward less airline customer service. Separately, we've had to do literal full-scale investigations to untangle increased airline baggage fees. But rarely have we gotten to do a story where an airline so shamelessly and simultaneously combined both of those:

On Monday, Air Jamaica started charging passengers $25 for the second checked bag on flights from New York to Grenada and Barbados, but the second checked bag won't be on their flight. Air Jamaica will transport the first checked bag on passengers' flights, at no charge. All other bags will be transported within seven days and must be picked up at the airport, Air Jamaica said... Passengers ticketed on or before May 10 for travel after May 11 will be allowed two free checked bags in economy and three in executive class.

On the plus side they're implementing a system to track your bag until its ready for you to personally pick up. Sure it took companies like UPS and FedEx decades of work and billions of dollars to implement setups like that. And yes even major carriers still can't tell you much more than "your luggage isn't at this airport yet" when it gets misplaced. But the good folks at Air Jamiaca are very confident that their system will work.

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Airlines Rake In Over A Billion Dollars In Baggage Fees

If you've been getting that vague sensation that your extra baggage fees are keeping airlines alive, you're pretty close to the truth.

It seems that 2008, also known as the year of confusing fees, turned out to be a lucrative one for those who tacked on dollars and did the confusing. Bloomberg News explains:

American Airlines and US Airways led U.S. carriers in pocketing a collective record $1.1 billion in bag fees in 2008 as they began charging to check luggage to defray jet-fuel costs. Industrywide collections more than doubled from 2007. Last year's total was the most since the agency started keeping track in 1990... 'These small fees really add up,' said Matthew Jacob, a Majestic Research analyst in New York. 'It helps, when you're in a competitive industry and demand is under pressure, to be able to squeeze revenues out of part of your business where you couldn't previously.'

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Baggage Fee Lowdown: Continental Airlines

Checked baggage allowances make our heads hurt, and often in those critical few hours before a flight as we bounce to close our suitcase. To put minds at ease and clarify all the charts out there, all week long at Jaunted we will be detailing what it costs to check your bags and get on board. Got any suggestions or tips? Let us know.

Continental's Domestic Routes (within United States and Canada):
Thus far, Continental hasn't caved in to upping their fees, but we still have to pay them. That is, unless you are First or BusinessFirst, OnePass Elite, traveling on full-fare economy (Y) class tickets, or active military personnel. All the rest of us in cheap-o economy will have to pay:
· $15 for your first checked bag.
· $25 for your second bag.
· Extra dollars if you check more than 2 bags, exceed 50 lbs per bag, go over 62 inches all around each bag, or you're hauling a special item like a totem pole or harp.

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