Flybe - Beware excess baggage costs

Victor_Delta

My daughter is studying in France for a year and so I bought her an online Flybe ticket for a flight from Southampton to Bordeaux last week. Knowing she would have quite a lot of kit to take with her, I paid for two cases (you can select anything between 0 and 4 per person, with a charge of £2-50 per bag, or £5 subsequently at the airport).

Since the baggage allowance is 25kg, I assumed this would enable my daughter to take 50kg with her. However, I was quite wrong! Regardless of how many bags you pay for in the hold, the baggage allowance per person remains 25kg. We ended up having to pay over £150 for excess baggage (more than her ticket...)!

Obviously I should have read the small print more carefully but thought others would like to be warned about this. Do all the budget airlines operate this way?

V

sloppychops

Yep pays to check beforehand as no airline is going to give you an extra 25kg of luggage for £2.50.

gingerdad

All airlines operate in that way, usually its a % of the equivalent first class fare on that route (standard IATA fares) can be up to 5% if I remember rightly, it's a few years since I worked for an airline

GD

angel

I think that I might have fallen for that one the same as you did to be honest.

I got caught in July with an overweight case and had to pay excess baggage, it hurts. They seem to be charging more often these days. I've flown all my life and this is the first time that I've been charged although I'm usually slightly over. I won't make that mistake again!

hammy_the_hammer

as someone has already posted you could not seriously expect an airline to charge £2.50 for 25kg of luggage....if that was the 'case' it would be extremely unlikely that your flight to the med. would even leave the tarmac

cundall

Yeh i also wish that for 2.50 i would get 25kg of extra weight! I would be taking so much home for me! though as you did not read the small print its an easy mistake...

Though for your question all airlines not just low cost one charge for extra weight though if you dont go with a low cost airline they are normally flexable to about 10% of the allowed weight!

budgetflyer

Id have fallen for that too. You really do need to go through the T&Cs with a fine tooth comb nowadays.

jamescredmond

sloppychops wrote:

Yep pays to check beforehand as no airline is going to give you an extra 25kg of luggage for £2.50.

maybe not, but £150 for excess?!? no wonder the OP is gagging.

sloppychops

jamescredmond wrote:

maybe not, but £150 for excess?!? no wonder the OP is gagging.

Thats actually normal pricing for overweight baggage,some airlines charge alot more.

Poppy9

I do think the airlines count on catching you out. They hide baggage in the very small print and on xl.com I couldn't even find the basic allowance when booking a ticket. I had to ring up to find out and they said there was a 'problem' with their website at the moment and the baggage allowance wasn't shown!! No doubt they would deny that if you turned up at the airport with too much luggage.

We like to travel (3 of us) with just 2 cases if possible. It's such hard work finding it in writing if we can share our baggage allowance over 2 cases (and what the max bag weight is). TCD did not allow us to share our baggage allowance so we had to take 3 cases. Virgin gave a huge 32kg per case and upto 2 cases per person so no problem them. Excel airways did let us share our baggage allowance so we only had to take 2 bags.

I think all relevant information should have to be in large, bold print not lost in the small print.

cundall

jamescredmond wrote:

maybe not, but £150 for excess?!? no wonder the OP is gagging.

Yep normal rate it works out at 6 pounds per kilo, maybe next time post it home! Posted 8.4kg from china to england for 15 pounds..