My attempt at satire (but I’m heretically challenged in that department.)
I flew Flair (an airline based in Canada) once and they charged for overhead bin use. On that short summer trip, I only had a small backpack that fit under the seat.
Those kinds of airlines can be bargains if you bring no bags that lead to the extra fees. But if you have to pay baggage fees, then they are likely to be comparable in price to other airlines (or more so if you did not prepay).
Frontier has been checking every single person’s personal item (for size) on the most recent flights - they’ve gotten a lot stricter.
I wear a lot of my clothing on me and put stuff in my pockets!
There exists clothing designed to carry a lot of your stuff so that your airline baggage needs are smaller. Some examples are listed at 7 Top Travel Vests with Pockets for Men + Women [New] .
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I love travel gear with zippered pockets. I zip items into clothing before getting to tsa, take the jacket/vest off, put it through security and put it back on afterwards. It’s so much easier than having to count items and not leave things at tsa.
Similarly in the plane, I try to always have items zipped into my pockets or backpack if not actively using them so I don’t have to hunt around and risk losing them. My travel jackets and vest have zippered pockets. Even my travel slacks haves zippered pocket—so useful!
I do not use SCOTTeVEST but have read positive reviews. I like Columbia omniheat gear for extra warmth without as much bulk. They have lifetime warranty which they happily honor.
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Boy that sounds like a scam to me! Haven’t flown Frontier in 10 years.
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Many credit cards and airline loyalty programs have a free checked bags benefit. I think it’s less about saving the checked bag fee and more about being able to quickly grab your suitcase and get out of the airport without having to stop at baggage claim (hence the irritation with having to gate check, which is also free).
As someone who always checks bags (I have the freebie through my credit card), it can be irritating to have to wait for everyone to gather their belongings from the overhead bin and clear the aisle so I can get off the plane with my lone, under the seat tote bag. I try to pick a seat as far up front as I can to minimize the time I have to wait.
I travel with a friend a couple of times a year who used to only do a carry on (then she got a credit card with the checked bag benefit). She used to call me the day before we were leaving to make sure I was brining all the stuff that she couldn’t have (or fit) in her checked bag (typically hair stuff - a blow dryer, curling iron, hair spray, etc.) I finally told her in a joking way, that I was going to start to charge her whatever the checked bag fee was at the time (I think $35) to use my stuff!
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The only time when I have seen D1 go crazy was when we were traveling on JetBlue. We got on and put our carryons on the overhead. A couple came on, the man took D1’s luggage out a bit so he could fit their luggages in, so it looked like it was D1’s luggage that couldn’t fit. The man just sat there and wouldn’t move his luggage. D1’s husband stood up jammed the other couple’s luggage as hard as possible and closed the overhead. He said he hopped they had a lot of breakables.
I have never seen anything like it before. We no longer travel JetBlue for various other reasons.
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Indeed. And the ability to get on another flight, with my luggage, if my flight has some delay or cancelation.
I don’t mind “stopping” at baggage claim. But the last time I checked a bag, I had to wait over an hour. That was after a 13 hour journey. It felt interminable!
I get 2 checked bags for free – it’s not about cost! But I also prefer to travel with a carry-on as it’s easier to manage than bigger bags.
I travel on 20-24 hours flights (including layover time) regularly. I’d rather not have a large carryon with me. In fact, I usually check my carryon sized luggage for these long flights and keep a small backpack with essentials with me.
Just plane rude passenger. Has nothing to do with Jet Blue. Rule of the skies, don’t touch other folks’s stuff without politely asking, ‘can I slide your bag over so I can squeeze mine in?’
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I’ve had my bag lost one too many times that we never ever check bags unless we have no choice (aka small aircraft that requires gate check).
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H and I returned home yesterday after a 16 day trip to London, Porto and Lisbon. This is the first trip we have put Airtags into our luggage and they worked great. All of our flights were nonstop so there was no luggage being transferred to other flights, but I could check my iPhone for each of our bags and see where they were.
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Has anyone else noticed the “priority bag” tags no longer mean anything? We recently missed a connecting flight because it took so long for our bags to come out when the non priority bags were coming first. This also happened at our final destination. It’s really annoying.
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it can be hit or miss, particularly if the airport is not a hub of the carrier you are on. At non-hub airports, baggage handlers could be contractors, not employees of your carrier, and since contractors service multiple airlines, they may not much care about various priority tags.
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Alaska uses contractors even at Seatac. Menzies Aviation or whatever it is called. Tags get ignored all the time.
Was this because you had to get the bags for customs during the connection? Otherwise, a connection on the same ticket is supposed to have the bags transferred during the connection.
We had luggage that didn’t get transferred on a connecting flight domestic. And there was plenty of time to get this done. In fact, our bags didn’t arrive at our airport for 24 hours after our return home.
I was willing to gate check when we were allowed to pick up our bags on the jet way. But now that we have to go to baggage claim…no way.
Yes but if the bags had come out with the non priority bags, we would have made it. We ended up waiting an additional 5 hours in the airport.
I’ve often asked myself about this!
On major airports, with huge automated baggage sorting systems, things will happen in sequence, “priority tag” or not. So that pretty much leaves the location in the cargo hold as the only substantial factor that a priority tag could control.
So, maybe all the priority bags are supposed to be grouped together on one cart as the carriers are loaded before driven out to the plane, loaded last and offloaded first. But at arrival, they’ll still end up on the carrier that drives back from the plane. Unless those handlers make the effort to offload the carts in a certain order - regardless of how practical - bags will again enter the arrival sorting systems in whatever sequence?
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