Keebs

Hi,

Thought I'd post this as someone may find it useful.

I telephoned TRAVELBAG to enquire about the cheapest non-stopover flights in early/mid October that allow double luggage allowance (40kg) for people immigrating to Australia (Brisbane).

I was requested to bring my passport with my visa inside it as proof which they duly photocopied.

Also two friends who were immigrating to Australia in the past year with two different carriers (Singapore & Emirates) had problems with the 40kg allowance so I requested it in writing to hopefully prevent it happening to me.

The list of carriers that I was made aware of are as follows: Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Thai, Singapore and finally Royal Brunei Air (never heard of them).
Now there may be others but I wasn't made aware of any.

Well, after booking Cathay and just about to leave I was called back as the travel agent noticed something alarming in the SMALL PRINT!
The 40kg seat costs an extra near £200 making it around £550!
Thankfully, this seat was cancelled.

The next cheapest was Royal Brunei Air, now I must have pulled a face as the travel agent assured me they had a good reputation, and showed me and gave me their website address. The only slight problem is they don't serve ANY ALCOHOL on board ! ! !

So if ANYONE is flying from Heathrow to Brisbane via Brunei on October 7th with Royal Brunei Air, flight BI98 and fancy a greet and meet in the departure lounge then I'm up for it.

Please take pity on me as I have to fly across the world on my own as my wife is staying behind to tie up any loose ends.

Hope this helps.

Best Wishes

Keebs.

PS I'll wear a red carnation dark sunglasses and carry The Times newspaper

Stitch

Sounds like a good offer, but we have to stay just a little bit longer.

Enjoy your flight

Pollyana

In Australia many restaurants/cafes have a lovely custom advertised as BYO - this means Bring Your Own (Alcohol). Same applies to Royal Air Brunei....... they don't serve it on board, but you can take your own to drink

Hope this cheers your flight on its way - take the booze of your choice with you, and drink it en route.

(Personally, I think Cathay are worth the extra outlay, but each to their own)

Trekrider

We are flying on BA to Sydney and I have phoned BA two times to ask about the baggage allowance, both times they have said it is 40kg but our e-tickets still say 23kg

I have to say I am still nervous that they might argue at the check-in desk. We don't have visa's in our passports as we have to get them stamped after we get to Oz!

Trekrider

sme

qantas also told me that you have to pay for an "emigrant fare" (ie extra !), which can only be for a one way flight. Therefore not entitled to it for our validation trip

Trekrider

We are flying one way and it is costing more than we paid for our return trip a couple of months ago Luckily the company are paying so it makes no difference to us.

Trekrider

Sue2

I'm flying with direct to Brisbane with Emirates, had no problem getting 40kg I asked what allowance I was allowed for emigrating they said 40kg...just had to confirm it with Emirates and then sorted it out with e.bookers, you just have to make sure it states it on the tickets so it doesn't cause any problems at check in

Sue

lesleys

If you go via Canada or the US you get 64kg each whether migrating or not. Just a thought.

Lesley

Sir Les Patterson

take a baby ...we went to visit in laws and came back with over 100kg just showed them the baby at checkin and let the ladies at singapore airlines coo over him and they a great they just let us go through

Alan & Sonia

We are hoping to go within a couple of months, I don't think we could manage to have a baby in this time scale....any ideas...or should we just keep practicing??????

Trekrider

I am really upset now, I emailed BA to try and get something in writing to show we were allowed 40kg after having been told twice on the phone that we were, just in case of difficulty at check-in (we even bought three new suitcases so that we would have two each). I got a very non-commital answer to say that some flights to Oz did allow 40kg but no comment on my flight or ticket so I phoned for a third time. This time I was told in no uncertain terms that we were only allowed the standard 23kg anything over this would be charged at over £30 per kilo! That makes it over £1500 excess charge!

The tickets are costing over £900 each for the three of us and we can't use our BA points to upgrade and we can't take over 23kg in baggage. BA say that if we had booked direct with them then we could have had the upgrade to business and the higher allowance. What is even more annoying is that booking direct would have been £100 each cheaper. Unfortunately it is company policy to only allow bookings through the company travel agent.

Our only hope is that BA said our travel agent may have negotiated a higher allowance and we should check with them. What I don't understand here is that BA couldn't tell us if they had so even if our agent says they did how do we prove it at check-in?

Sorry for the rant,

Trekrider

Sue2

Nightmare!!! is there no way you could return the tickets to the agent so they can update them? do you have time?

When I sorted my allowance out, e.bookers had already issued the tickets but had not posted them so they updated them for us...but did say if they had of posted them it was just a case of sending them back to get them changed.

Emirates did say if the tickets did not state the correct allowance it would depend who was on the desk on that day if they would let us through with the extra weight.

Hope it all works out for you

Sue...Also e.bookers are very cheap for flights whoever is due to ook tickets soon.

Pollyana

The definitive way of checking your allowance is to phone BA customer services at your departure aiport. Tell them there is confusion over an extra baggage allowance, and ask them to check your PNR. this is the record of your booking, on the check-in computer, and this is what the checkin staff will use.
If you don't have the extra allowance, airfreight the stuff over at the last minute. It'll get here about the same time as you, and is cheaper than the BA price for excess.

MikeMc

We are looking to do a validation trip shortly, but want to keep the 40kg option for the final return, does anyone know if this will still be an option ? - I am guessing we will just get the standard luggage on validation but if the visa is stamped does this mean no 40kg on the next trip ?

Trekrider

Thanks for the recommendation, I rang Heathrow and got a number for BA – I think it was the national number anyway and then asked for the customer service desk at terminal 4. I was told they were as close to terminal 4 as you could get, what was the problem. I then explained it all again and was told firstly that my original flight reservation had been cancelled and rebooked (no idea why or by whom) .

To cut a long story short we are entitled to 40kg so long as we bring along some evidence that we are emigrating – our email from Australian Immigration was considered good enough. Our records have been marked up to say we are entitled to 40kg and all should be OK. I asked what would happen if we get to check-in and it is queried as we don’t have any evidence that it has been increased. He said that the records have been marked up and to quote his name if there is a problem .

So, 3 out of 4 BA operators say we can have 40kg – not quite as good odds as 9 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskers, but I think that’s as good as we can get.

Just wait for the fireworks on the evening of the 17th if the check-in desk staff have a different view.

Trekrider