Earlier this month, Janice Hough at Consumer Traveler wrotethat coming anti-consumer “interline” baggage rules were worse than baggage fees. With all respect to Ms. Hough, who is a travel agent, in this regard, we believe she is wrong, although we can understand her point of view. Let’s go over the issue. Interline baggage refers to…
While most airlines have been adding new fees, no American carrier has been more aggressive about doing so than Spirit Airways. Spirit ‘s strategy has been to tease outrageously low fares with obnoxious and vulgar advertisements, but charge exorbitant fees for normal services. Perhaps the most egregious of these is their charge for carry on…
Though 1.5 million bags have been lost by American Airlines through September of this year, that’s 900,000 fewer than in the same period of 2008, according to a recent article by Scott McCartney at the Wall Street Journal. While this sounds impressive, it is impossible to assess how much improvement there has been without knowing the total number of checked bags during each period.
Effective July 1st, for travel beginning August 1st, Spirit Airlines will now charge for carry-on bags. You will still be able to take your small personal item onboard, but if you wish a carryon bag in the overhead, that will be $30 before departure. If you are member of their $9 Fare Club(which oddly enough costs $39.95 a year), you get to pay only $20. And if you forget or miss notice of this new rule, you can pay $45 at the gate.
[caption id="attachment_1704" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Leather seats with Headrests"][/caption] Virgin America is testing the idea of letting passengers who are traveling without carry-on luggage board the plane first. Now, we aren’t sure of the exact details. We assume personal items wouldn’t count, and this would be limited to actual luggage. Few people travel with only the…
Image by puregin via Flickr We spun off Infrequent Flier to provide basic travel tips and advice, allowing Flight Wisdom to be, as its tagline says, “News, Thoughts, and Advice on Air Travel and the Travel Experience.” Today, we’re testing out a new theme at Infrequent Flier. We like to mix things up every so…
The Boston Globe theorized last week that JetBlue would soon match other airlines in charging for a first checked bag. Southwest and JetBlue are the only major carriers who do not charge for the first bag. Dave Barger, CEO of JetBlue advised that no decision had been made and that he was “wary of being…
Image by Getty Images via Daylife A Yale student is suing US Airways, claiming that they stole an Xbox 360 from his luggage. He is requesting $1 million in compensation. Jesse Maiman claims that when he took a Dec. 17, 2008, flight from New Haven, Conn., to Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, he checked his Xbox…
Image by Getty Images via Daylife United Airlines is dropping a call center that took compliments or complaints after a flight, instructing passengers to send a letter or email instead. It will stop publishing its customer relations number. It will be training its call centers in Chicago and Honolulu to respond to written customer comments,…
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Image by Getty Images via Daylife"][/caption] Delta Air Lines announced today it will revise its baggage fees effective immediately for all tickets sold for travel on or after December 5th, it will charge a $15 fee for the first bag and a $25 fee for the second. Most Northwest policies and…