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Rufus Roo jacket review thread

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Comments

  • welshtony
    welshtony Posts: 65 Forumite
    pd001 wrote: »
    I know that the above was posted a while ago, but has anyone had any issues recently with their rufus roo??

    Has anyone else had any other adverse experiences with Ryanair (or others), re these sorts of jackets?

    Would also be usefule to hear of anyone who has successfully flown on Ryanair with them, recently.
  • lordra
    lordra Posts: 333 Forumite
    I will be flying to India via AIr India Airlines. Lets see what happens. HAve a large Roofus and a full length leather jacket to wear on top of it to cover it up...! Think this will be a problem?
    Living off £450 per month is easy...! If you aren't single! :j
  • NonGeographicalMan
    NonGeographicalMan Posts: 1,441 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 19 January 2014 at 3:13PM
    lordra wrote: »
    HAve a large Roofus and a full length leather jacket to wear on top of it to cover it up...! Think this will be a problem?

    I think you will have a very big problem wearing your leather jacket over a fully laden Roofus Roo. It may work ok the other way round though so long as you have the largest jacket size and are not that huge yourself.

    In general the Rufus Roo has to be your top layer of clothing to work. You can't end up wearing stuff on top of it because of all the big bulges if you have filled it with a full 10kg of stuff.

    So far I only travelled with my Rufus Roo jacket on Norwegian and Vueling with no issues. But both these airlines are so laid back about not vigorously enforcing their hand luggage limit I doubt anyone would get challeged on carrying extra weight this way. Ryanair is completely different in their attitude but they have effectively endorsed the Rufus Roo by selling it in their in flight magazine. However Ryanair are notorious for suddenly threatening to refuse permission to board just as you are about to get on the plane unless you don't check items they object to in to the hold. There is no way to appeal this at the time. You just get excluded if you don't pay up..............

    Personally I would always avoid Ryanair and also Easyjet on any route unless they are the only carrier flying it or all the other carriers are massively more expensive (as in charging at least £100 more return than Ryanair or Easyjet)

    My other concern about the Rufus Roo is it doesn't feel very strong. When I had it fully laden I was very concerned there might be a big ripping sound and everything would end up on the floor.
  • I've bought an old army surplus jacket (£12 from eBay :money:) that has pockets everywhere - I'm hoping it will do the same job. I'm flying with monarch and their carry-on allowance is only 5kg, so I'm still going to need to travel fairly light - I'm thinking kindle/camera/chargers/toiletries in the coat and only light weight clothes in the bag - what do you reckon?
  • I'm flying with monarch and their carry-on allowance is only 5kg, so I'm still going to need to travel fairly light - I'm thinking kindle/camera/chargers/toiletries in the coat and only light weight clothes in the bag - what do you reckon?

    Monarch charter flights with a flight number beinning MON only have a 5kg allowance but Monarch scheduled (low cost) flights (the vast majority of their flights these days) with flight numbers starting ZB have a 10kg allowance.

    If you do only have a charter luggage allowance of 5kg then I would personally recommend paying for a hold bag unless you are someone who travels unbelievably light and are also prepared to wear several t shirts and sets of underwear on your person too. In my experience 10kg hand luggage is enough to avoid a hold bag but 5kg is not, especially bearing in mind that most pieces of hand luggage weight over at least 1kg themselves.

    I would strongly warn you that Monarch are also not the helpful airline they used to be be and now try to charge customers extra at every turn just like the big bright orange and irish harp airlines. For instance when I missed one of the flights check ins by about one minute a year ago they not only refused to put me on that flight (even though they quite clearly could have done if they had been old Monarch not playing the let's stuff customers with every extra charge we can game) but also made me pay the cost of the whole of the other flight with them later that day, even though it actually cost slightly less than the flight that I had technically missed. Old helpful Monarch would (a) have got me on my original flight unless I had got to the airport with less than 30 minutes to go before departure and (b) would not have charged to move me to another flight later that day on which they still had plenty of space left (it was mid October) given that I had shown up at the airport and not simply no showed at all.
  • lordra
    lordra Posts: 333 Forumite
    I think you will have a very big problem wearing your leather jacket over a fully laden Roofus Roo. It may work ok the other way round though so long as you have the largest jacket size and are not that huge yourself.

    In general the Rufus Roo has to be your top layer of clothing to work. You can't end up wearing stuff on top of it because of all the big bulges if you have filled it with a full 10kg of stuff.

    So far I only travelled with my Rufus Roo jacket on Norwegian and Vueling with no issues. But both these airlines are so laid back about not vigorously enforcing their hand luggage limit I doubt anyone would get challeged on carrying extra weight this way. Ryanair is completely different in their attitude but they have effectively endorsed the Rufus Roo by selling it in their in flight magazine. However Ryanair are notorious for suddenly threatening to refuse permission to board just as you are about to get on the plane unless you don't check items they object to in to the hold. There is no way to appeal this at the time. You just get excluded if you don't pay up..............

    Personally I would always avoid Ryanair and also Easyjet on any route unless they are the only carrier flying it or all the other carriers are massively more expensive (as in charging at least £100 more return than Ryanair or Easyjet)

    My other concern about the Rufus Roo is it doesn't feel very strong. When I had it fully laden I was very concerned there might be a big ripping sound and everything would end up on the floor.

    1. I think I tick all those boxes, I am smallish and have a large Roo with a full length matrix style, loose leather jacket! You can't really see any bulges in it due to it being so biggish! It is a size small though...

    2. Thank you for the reply, just been busy with work, really appreciate it, I fly tomorrow!

    3. Is 10kg the limit for the Roo? Or is that a limit imposed by someone else?

    4. I'm flying with Air India, on a long haul international flight, with a 3 hour change in Delhi, India. I'm sure no one has ever used this on Air India at BHX so lets see what happens.

    5. My travellers backpack is an inch longer than they want it to be. If I bend it though, it loses an inch, WIll this be a problem or should I find another alternative?

    THank you for the replies, I'm really nervous about tomorrow, I'm moving home, so have 4 x 23 = 96kgs of bags, plus 8kgs of hand luggage and the Roo. Have a lot to take back!
    Living off £450 per month is easy...! If you aren't single! :j
  • lordra wrote: »
    3. Is 10kg the limit for the Roo? Or is that a limit imposed by someone else?

    4. I'm flying with Air India, on a long haul international flight, with a 3 hour change in Delhi, India. I'm sure no one has ever used this on Air India at BHX so lets see what happens.

    You will already have flown by now and found out if there were any issues. There is no actual weight limit the airlines allow inside one of these jackets. The only restrictions are (a) it gets so full up you can't put any more in it or (b) you put so much heavy stuff in it there is the sound of a nasty rip from the cheap plastic as you head to the aircraft and all your stuff falls out or (c) you look so much like a Sumo Wrestler that the airline refuses to check you in to until you have agreed to check in the Rufus Roo !!! additional excess luggage. In theory (c) should not happen with Ryanair because of their previous assistance in marketing the product in their In Flight magazine but if their staff object on the ground a passenger will be left not flying or paying excess charges and then trying to correspond with Michael O'Leary about it afterwards in the hope he will bother replying.

    With Air India I would imagine they hardly ever encounter Rufus Roos as they normally give a hold luggage allowance that is sufficient for most passengers. Although they may have seen an opportunity to hit you with excess baggage charges if the jacket was very large and bulky so they noticed it.
    5. My travellers backpack is an inch longer than they want it to be. If I bend it though, it loses an inch, WIll this be a problem or should I find another alternative?
    Expect you will be fine on Air India or most normal carriers. I wouldn't risk being an inch over on length with Ryanair or Easyjet.
    Thank you for the replies, I'm really nervous about tomorrow, I'm moving home, so have 4 x 23 = 96kgs of bags, plus 8kgs of hand luggage and the Roo. Have a lot to take back!
    How did it go. Did you make it without being hit with lots of extra luggage charges? Also did you have two passengers if you had 4 x 23kg bags or did you buy extra bags from the airline before travel? Most airlines won't let you take as much as 96kg, even if you pay extra, for one person.
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