The baggage charges lately are really high. In March, I spent days packing,
weighing, giving away and selling items and re-packing, throwing things away
and re-packing again when coming home from Aruba I and still paid US Airways
hundreds of dollars in luggage fees. One thing that I did discover is that
First Class was allowed two free 70# bags and the upgrade fee at the time
was $200. This was less than the excess baggage fee for two 70# bags,
however unfortunately there were no upgradeable seats available on my
flight. Another option is a freight forwarder, but getting the items though
customs can also be expensive and it requires more effort than carrying
luggage. Perhaps some of your guest operators can each bring a few items.
I used to carry aluminum tubing in a golf bag and no one ever questioned the
contents, I wonder if they look inside it now to confirm if it is really
sporting equipment?
GL,
John KK9A / P40A
To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Baggage Charges for Expeditions
From: Geoff Howard <ghoward@kent.edu>
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 09:43:33 -0700
List-post: <cq-contest@contesting.com">mailto:cq-contest@contesting.com>
Contesters,
Is there anyone in the contesting community who works at American
Airlines corporate (and is willing to identify yourself)?
I'm interested in investigating the possibility of getting ham
equipment classified as sports equipment for baggage charge purposes.
To explore this, we need a contact inside of AA. The recent large
increases in baggage charges are rapidly making it prohibitive for us
to continue to operate overseas. (An oversize bag, for example, is
now $200. A third piece is $150.) Because of these charges, we have
had to decide this week to hold back considerable important equipment
that was scheduled to go to PJ2T this fall.
Anybody else running into showstopper baggage charges on DXpeditions?
Any ideas or advice for us?
Thanks,
- Geoff, W0CG, PJ2DX, for the PJ2T crews
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
|