Thomas Cook luggage surcharge at airport (scam!)

Slothy

Hi everyone,

Just back from a (wonderful!) holiday from Santorini. Amazing place, but the return journey was so awful I wanted to warn others of what happened.

We flew Gatwick - Santorini, no problems on the way out. Luggage was weighed at Gatwick and all was fine, hand luggage and suitcases were within limits.

On the way back, however, Thomas Cook checkin staff weighed our luggage again at Santorini airport, and deemed us 4 kilos over the limits. At a surcharge of 18 euros per kilo, they demanded 72 euros before admitting our luggage. Upon returning to the UK we re-weighed our luggage at the Gatwick re-packing station with officially calibrated scales, and we confirmed our luggage was below the weight limits.

We ended up not paying the additional charges as I happened to have a jacket in my suitcase with pockets that, as it turned out, will hold several kilos of stuff (yay!). Talking to other people on the flight some did end up paying substantial extra charges. A terrible experience for the trip home

stephb34

Not actually Thomas Cooks fault they don't own the scales in Santorini, the Greeks do and that's who the money goes to not TC, they seem to be much keener in all the foreign airports than our own.

marsman802

Just got hit with extra baggage at Palermo by Alitalia but they charged me 60 euro to check in a second bag at 20kgs (it was all food lol) as they wouldn't let me take on as hand luggage. Thought it was a good deal to be fair

Pollycat

Slothy wrote: »

On the way back, however, Thomas Cook checkin staff weighed our luggage again at Santorini airport, and deemed us 4 kilos over the limits.

I'd be surprised if they were actually Thomas Cook staff who were checking you in.
More likely to be Santorini airport staff - a bit like Swissport who are ground handling agents in a lot of UK airports.

That said, they are the representatives of whichever airline they are checking people in for.

4kgs is quite a lot so I'd expect lots of passengers were caught out.
For example, if luggage allowance is 15kgs, anything over 10.5kgs would be over the limit.
I doubt that many people checking in would have that little in a hold suitcase.

stephb34 wrote: »

Not actually Thomas Cooks fault they don't own the scales in Santorini, the Greeks do and that's who the money goes to not TC, they seem to be much keener in all the foreign airports than our own.

I didn't know that, I thought that any excess luggage fees would go to the airline as it is them who are possibly incurring excess costs in additional fuel.

Even though it didn't cost you anything in excess fees, I'd be inclined to contact Thomas Cook and tell them of your experience.

It's a good heads-up so thanks for that.

Slothy

60 euros for another bag sounds quite reasonable. If our charge had been reasonable (20 or 30 euros) I probably would have just paid it (grudgingly).

Just to clarify the situation a bit more (thanks for all the replies everyone!). The check-in staff weighed hand luggage (5kg limit) and suitcases (20kg pre-booked allowance) both during departure at Gatwick and Santorini. I've never really seen hand luggage weighed before, and the check-in staff claimed it was for health-and-safety reasons in case items fall out of overhead bins (too bad I put my stuff under the seat in front, but hey ho).

The 4kg excess weight was a total of the 4 bags (2 pieces of hand luggage, and 2 suitcases to check in). As an aside, they were also extremely strict on the 1 item hand luggage rule - my wife was not allowed to take her handbag and backpack (luckily handbag fit inside backpack just this once). We didn't even dare to buy tax-free in case they'd kick up a fuss about that too.

I once read a blog entry from Martin about a jacket with lots of pockets to bypass hand luggage / check-in luggage limits. I'm definitely going to look into those for future Thomas Cook flights.

Slothy

To follow up on some of the other comments - because the check-in experience was identical (and different from anything I've experienced before) in weighing both hand luggage and suitcases, I assume they were following Thomas Cook policy. I would also assume that any excess luggage charges would go to the airline rather than the airport itself?

littlereddevil

I've always hand my hand luggage weighed by Thomas Cook and it's not the first time I've had to take stuff out lol

essjaytee

Slothy wrote: »

To follow up on some of the other comments - because the check-in experience was identical (and different from anything I've experienced before) in weighing both hand luggage and suitcases, I assume they were following Thomas Cook policy. I would also assume that any excess luggage charges would go to the airline rather than the airport itself?

ha ha ha... I once got pulled flying home from Jamaica and got told I would have to pay $60 for mine and my partner's overweight suitcases!! I opened my purse and showed the guy behind the desk that I only had $20 left on me. He very quickly agreed to me just paying this and then proceeded to put the money in his back pocket and waved us on!!

mew

stephb34 wrote: »

Not actually Thomas Cooks fault they don't own the scales in Santorini, the Greeks do and that's who the money goes to not TC, they seem to be much keener in all the foreign airports than our own.

I can see your point in regards to the scales but are you sure it's the airport service company that keeps the fee?

If the airport or airport service company keeps the fee, then surly it would be a set fee at each airport but instead it's a set fee per airline.

For example why would Ryanair annoy it's customers so much if it did not keep the money it rakes in from overweight/oversize baggage?

Heliflyguy

Excess baggage fees should go to the airline and would normally be processed in the passengers booking so a record will be made.

I would ask for a print out to act as a receipt, any refusal to supply a receipt would be suspicious.

Moto2

mew wrote: »

I can see your point in regards to the scales but are you sure it's the airport service company that keeps the fee?

If the airport or airport service company keeps the fee, then surly it would be a set fee at each airport but instead it's a set fee per airline.

For example why would Ryanair annoy it's customers so much if it did not keep the money it rakes in from overweight/oversize baggage?

I believe the handling company [whoever they are] get a % of any fees levied to cover their admin and mark up for extras.
They already pay the airport for the rental of the desks and belts etc. The airline - in turn - pay the handling company per flight plus anything else that they've managed to include as a chargeable.


The airline obviously need the fee to cover extra fuel etc.