hotel

Just want to make everyone aware that as of 12/02, Northwest now charges $25 fee for any checked baggage over 50 lbs, and $50 fee for any checked bagage 71-100 lbs. Baggage over 100 lbs will NOT be accepted.

My wife and I recently went away for a 5 day trip and for convenience packed all of our clothes in one bag. Well, with the 2 of us, our bag was over the 50 lbs limit, and we scrambled at the check-in counter to move a few items from out luggage to our carry-on bags (regardless of the fact that there were 2 of us and only checking 1 bag).

If this is part of NW's solution to help solve their financial woes, i can see why the airline industry is in distress.

Anonymous

It does seem that a sensible limit would be pounds of luggage PER PASSENGER or even per family, doesn't it?

As far as packing everything in one suitcase for convenience, I suspect you've never had the "convenience" of finding that your suitacase has gone to a different destination than yourself! When I travel with another family member, we not only pack our own suitcases, we also trade one outfit each, so that if one suitcase goes astray, the loser will at least have a few things in the other suitcase. Actually, we rarely check anything, especially for a trip just 5 days, mostly because of past experienes with mishandled luggage.

Maple

I thought that PART of the limit restrictions was to ease the problem of the airline employees being forced to lift ungodly huge & heavy bags. If it were strictly an overall weight issue they wouldn't allow you to just shift the excess to another/2nd bag. I know that we WAY over stuff at times and I feel sorry for the folks who have to lift/throw our bags. It is no wonder bags get damaged! My husband left yesterday from DFW and he was told he was over, but they didn't charge him. However, they warned him that Seattle is very restrictive about the overweight issue. My husband said that unfortunately, the overweight issue did not apply to the man who sat beside/on him in the cabin!

Brutforce

What do you folks pack ?? My mantra is if you can't carry it, you don't need it. We are traveling to Paris next week w/an infant for a week stay. 2 small drag-alongs & a back-pack, that's it. 50 lbs of crap to lug around, I can't imagine...

Doug

Just returned from Hawaii using American Airlines.....they now have a similar 50 lbs. policy. Had 2 checked bags so just shifted some things from the "heavy" bag to the "lighter" one.

GoTravel

Maple is correct. One of my friends tosses bags part time (so she can fly free) for one of the majors and she always tells me to split up luggage. It is hard on the employees and tough on your bags.

ALF

This is not a new policy - it has been in place for at least several years. Every year, my kids fly to summer camp and their duffels hover at around 50 pounds. On several occasions we had to pull something out in order to get under the limit. Just last month, my family went to Florida, and we tried to pack small by putting everything in one suitcase. At the airport, we weighed in at 53 pounds, and were told that we would have to lighten the load or face an overweight charge.

JackOneill

Alf is correct; this is an old policy. Over the last few months the airlines, however, have started vigorously enforcing it.
The cynical side of me, and many others, say its just a way airlines can generate some extra dough,

Kal

Doug, We flew Hawaiian Dec/Jan and in all my years of travel I've never seen the limit actually enforced like they seemed like they would.

Luckily we shipped a lot of "important stuff" over with our golf clubs.

Anonymous' post reminds me of the Henny Youngman joke:
"I checked my 3 bags at the airline. Told the guy I wan that bag to go to St Louis, that one to Chicago and that one to Dallas. The guy said we can't have them going to 3 diff. places.
Why not? You did last on my trip."

Kal

Oh...and not to give the wrong impression, most of the "important stuff" we shipped with our clubs were Mrs Kal's shoes...along w/ kitchen, coffee utensils and BIG beach towels.

tigerhawk

This isn't a "old" policy - the old policy at both Northwest and American was a 70 pound weight limit per bag with an $80 fee for overweight. Now the policy is 50 pounds but they have reduced the fee to $25 if it is between 50-70 pounds. On American the 70 pound limit still exists for flights to San Juan, Caribbean, and likely other international destinations - I would assume Northwest is the same. By now Delta and United may have followed suit, but they didn't immediately. At American, this policy very quietly became effective Dec 14 with no public warning, even to frequent flyers [I am a Gold Frequent Flyer at American].

The line I got from American was that it was to facilitate luggage screening. Frankly that's nonsense. It's just a way to pick up some easy money - the $80 fee was hard to collect, but how many are going to object to $25 as they stand in line for a trip they've been planning for months, and don't have other bags to shift stuff into.

m367

My suitcase weighs 14 pounds, empty. That was a shocker to me. My next suitcase is going to be a lightweight, cheapie!

Gretchen

And when you buy that new one make sure it doesn't exceed 62" in its dimensions or you will be paying for that also.

Cali

We were surprised to find that what we thought were light weight soft side bags weigh more than the hard side luggage. Our niece works for one of the major suitcase companies and she said the soft side bags have to have the frame beefed up and that adds to the weight. So, last trip we took out our old hard side luggage and used it while flying on Northwest and even hauling lots of business supplies (which are heavy) we never even got close to 50 lbs. We were aware of the new weight limit tho as Northwest told us when we booked our tickets. This definitely is new in Dec. as we have flown on NWA before and it was 70 lbs.

enjoylife

I flew Southwest the other week and a woman was being informed that she needed to take 20 lbs of stuff out of her bag because it weighed 70 lbs.