Spinning off the Atlanta NAC thread that spoke of all the hassels and problems with some of the airlines, I wanted to know how many fencers happened to travel on AIR TRAN and found at the Atlanta airport, to return home, they were charged $50.00 for their fencing bag? Even if it was a golf bag! Even if it was less than 50lbs. This happened to two of our fencers. One with a golf bag, because it did not contain golf clubs and the other with a soft side, smaller model, fencing bag. Neither had been charged on the inbound flight. (They were not traveling together, so likely two different clerks) AIR TRAN customer service response is that they do not have fencing equipment listed on their sporting equipment list, so it is charged as oversize bags. SO...............if you fly AIRTRAN, to fencing tournaments, that is $50.00 bucks each way.
I've never heard of such a thing, I mean, not that it surprises me. It goes along with the general trend of airline behavior.
However, almost every time I fly my fencing bag gets put on the "oversized" bag return, unless the airport doesnt have one. So it doesnt seem that airlines in general have a policy to charge more for them. It could be that AirTran is taking the lead in screwing passengers. Good job AirTran!
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__________________ . "I don't mind being the smartest man in the world. I just wish it wasn't this one." - Ozymandias .
Omg, I was soooo mad at this. I flew in from LAX on AirTran, after finding out that they actually, do in fact, have really great rates for flights, very cheap. I flew out to ATL without any problem. On flying back, even though my bag was only 35 lbs, in relation to the 51+ pounds that qualifies as an oversized bag, I was also told that any bag that measures more than 62" in length, width and height, combined is also oversized, saying that "jet fuel is expensive". Hellooo??? Larger bags don't cost any more jet fuel, HEAVIER ones do.
Anyways, the lady told me she sees 2,000 bags a day, and that she can tell when a bag is oversized, and mine is. So she also measures it. It's a soft sided bag, and so she's measuring across the rounded surface, instead of straight lengths and such. She asks me if I want a second opinion, from another checker, and I say yes. She checks it, and gets 62". I was like, WTF!!! And so then the original lady tells her that she wasn't doing it right, and to do it again. So next they get a 65" and a 70" measurement, and that my bag is oversized and I have to pay the 50 bucks. I was soooo PO'ed about that. (In response to any complaint I had about what was going on, the repeated response was simply, "The post office is right over there." - from the supervisor on duty, mind you.)
I had paid happily paid 20 bucks to upgrade to an aisle seat, being tall and all, so I asked if she'd rebate that and use it to discount the 50 dollar rate to 30, which she did. And she was even "nice" enough to do that and let me keep my aisle seat. Still, I can't tell you how F'in PO'ed I was over that. She said that in the fine print it says that when you buy the ticket, and that the LAX checker must have been new and missed it. So basically, you end up paying an extra 100 bucks for any AirTran tickets that you plan on purchasing, if you're travelling with fencing equipment.
This all reminds me to call into their corporate offices, somebody should post up the info if they find it. >:-(
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United sucks too. They charge 50$ for fencing bags though you can sometimes get away with calling it a golf bag and then for some reason you get to wave the weight fee. What really annoys me about United in particular is that they are supposed to be USFA supporters. Isnt that why theres a big old "United Airlines" logo on the back of the USFA cards?
We (Temple) ran into the same issue with AirTran. No charge on the way down, a demand for $50/bag on the return.
On the way down we travelled in two parties (JWE fencers and myself Thursday, the rest of the team and our other coach on Friday). The second group was momentarily checked about the bags in Philadelphia, the agent called up a supervisor, who cleared the bags as not requiring a fee under their policy.
In Atlanta the agent was adamant that their policy meant a charge. Golf equipment is excepted from the oversize requirement, but not the overweight requirement (our bags were running just over half the weight limit, so only the oversize bit mattered to us).
We bounced up a couple of layers of supervisor. Eventually we took as much out of the bags as possible, stuffed a bunch of equipment into our overnight bags, created a couple of extra carry-on bags (the mask bag I use for my lexan mask can also easily carry my full set of whites, incidently, and was easy to remove from my fencing bag), and used tape to tightly bind the bags to compress volume (and therefore 2 of the 3 dimensions). That got us close enough to compliance that, with the aid of the top-level AirTran supervisor at the airport, we got all of our bags on without extra fees.
Until that solution was found and implemented it was looking like a fun, unexpected, $750 hit to our budget.
We were told repeatedly in Atlanta that this has been a consistently-applied policy of AirTran's for the past 3 years. Pointing out that not having been required to pay it 4 days earlier disproved at least the "consistently-applied" portion only resulted in the assertion being repeated.
I won't consider AirTran for future fencing flights unless they're beating all other options by at least $100.
I do like Keith's suggestion in post #2, however.
-B
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United sucks too. They charge 50$ for fencing bags though you can sometimes get away with calling it a golf bag and then for some reason you get to wave the weight fee. What really annoys me about United in particular is that they are supposed to be USFA supporters. Isnt that why theres a big old "United Airlines" logo on the back of the USFA cards?
I've never been asked for a charge for a fencing bag by United. Or any other airline prior to last night.
I mostly fly USAir (based in PHL, go figure), with United being second most frequent. A scattering of flights on other carriers.
-B
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"Oh but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!"
For anyone who encountered this with AIR TRAN. Go onto their website and enter your complaint in the contact us.
The more they get the more they might respond.
I heard from one of the fencers that they did not even measure or take a serious look at his bag. Just said,'fencing equipment, that will be $50.00". Wonder what they would do with some of the students who travel by themselves???
I wonder if the checker in ATL got a bonus for bringing in several thousand in extra revenue.
I also wonder if they decided to enforce it after seeing so many bags come in over the weekend (as opposed to all the other airports inbound who only saw a few fencing bags).
Me: "This is basically a golf bag. There's just a fencing sticker on it."
AirTran Drone: "Well, it's not the bag, it's what's inside."
Me: "So if I throw some drivers in this bag, and come to Atlanta to play golf, there's no charge?"
ATD: "No, because it's a fencing bag."
Me: "That makes no sense. You just told me it's what's inside, so if I change what's inside, you tell me it's what's outside."
ATD: "Our policy says, right here, that golf bags are excepted." (Points to placard)
Me: "There's nothing on this card that says that."
ATD: "Well, you can look on our website for the policy."
Me: "Look ... what's the rationale? If I have to pay extra because everything over 62" is extra, that's fine. Is it height? Is it weight?"
ATD: "Our policy says anything over 62" except golf bags."
Me: "This is lighter than a golf bag. It's smaller than a golf bag, and you want me to pay $50 to put this on your plane?"
ATD: "Our policy says anything over 62" except certain sporting bags."
Me: (looks at watch, ponders security line) "Put it on my AmEx. I'm never flying AirTran again."
LVS: "#%$&*@ AirTran."
I flew AirTran to Seattle out of Atlanta back in September and they hit me with the 50 buck fee under the same story. I also complained about the manner in which the measurements were being taken as the ticketing guy got vastly different numbers every time this was performed.
I did end up buckling and paying the fee, which was not demanded on my return trip. It would appear the Atlanta AirTran employees are the only ones consistently enforcing this rule that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
The sum of the length width and height represents exactly useful measurement again?
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We also had a fencer who was on a United ticket but the UA flight was cancelled and UA rerouted her on an AirTran flight. AirTran charged her for her fencing bag. IIRC she eventually got UA to reimburse her and throw in some extra compensation for the inconvenience involved.
It must have been something happening at the airport because my husband and son left this morning (on Delta) and got the same treatment. The bag was to long, didn't get hassled on the trip out, wieghed to much, etc.
They didn't have to pay, but needless to say we won't be flying Delta into Atlanta anymore.
I just jacked AirTran for twenty bucks! I called 1-866-AIR-TRAN and went to option #3 and talked to someone. (After having been kicked around and talking to 4 or 5 other people.) Told them my story, and they refunded me 50 bucks, instead of the 30 I had actually paid, tee hee. Of course, I conveniently left out the part about using 20 bucks from my exit aisle seat to cover part of it, and they gave me the one time refund, only because I reported that it had indeed been measured at 62" on one of the measurements. Anyways, take that AirTran!!!
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