Getting ready for holiday travel? If you haven’t flown for awhile (and that’s the way a lot of fearful flyers operate–in a no-fly mode), you may or may not be aware that most airlines are now charging fees for your luggage. The first bag is one fee, the second bag is even more, and if your luggage weighs over 50 pounds–woe is you!
If you do fly, perhaps you’ve seen people at the check-in counter frantically shifting items from one bag to another. I witnessed this myself after the holiday season last year when my daughter attempted to fly with one really heavy bag and one not-quite-so-heavy one. She opened up her bag on the floor right there at the counter and started shifting as I asked an onlooking smiling male traveler if he’d like to take some of her heavier things to Chicago for her.
I just saw a television news alert that said not all airport scales tell the truth. Many of them are not set to zero so they reach the 50-pound limit much faster as a result. One of the scales tested in the report from the Cincinnati airport at a Delta counter was off by 37 pounds! Yikes…Can you hear the heavy sound of Ka-Ching!?
Here’s a hint for fearful flyers and stressed-out travelers alike. If you feel that your luggage might be close to the 50-pound limit, ask the baggage agent to reset the scale to zero. According to the tv report, there is a reset button on each scale (which are really run by computers). This simple request will save you money as well as the hassle of doing the baggage counter re-pack shuffle. Or pulling out your credit card.
