Philhowe

Hi all,

I booked one way flights for my family and I to Brisbane earlier this week, fully expecting to take advantage of the 45kg baggage allowance for migrant travellers.

Today I received a phone call to say that the airline has revoked this option because we have already entered Australia during our validation trip and therefore we are no longer subject to the luggage allowance.


I did argue that we have never entered as migrants only as visitors through the validation process but they still would not allow the extra weight. I just don’t know how I’m going to get my wife’s 800 pairs of shoes on the plane now


Has this happened to you, if so, did you get it resolved?

Phil & family

brissydeb

Have you thought about shipping? Try www.excessbaggage.com seems quite reasonable for shipping additional suit cases etc.

Debbie

FluffyTheCampfireSlayer

Unfortunately this is the norm with most if not all airlines.

We got stung by it as well!!

Was a case of chucking out most stuff and buying new when we got here - it's cheap enough.

Caroline can sympathise with your missus on the shoes front!!

NedKelly

Did they revoke this option after you had booked your tickets and did you tell them the full story when you booked. I would tell them you have revoked the option the fly with them and go and book elswhere.

Red_V_Roger

Singapore would not give us by e-mail the extra because 457 is not permanant.

Still managed to blag 75 kg between the two of us and well overweight hand luggage at Manchester by keeping the check-in guy talking when we sent the bags down.

Its just luck of draw - the check-in woman on the other side was weighing and calculating other people down to the last 100 grams. She was being a right cow.

God knows how much it would of cost if we had to pay.

We checked the bags all teh way through to Sydney - even though they are not supossed to do this if you have more than 48 hrs in Singapore - this meant we did not have to run the issues checking back in again at Sing.

The Woodcutter

In March 2006 my wife and I came to Australia on a recce to attend several interviews for jobs. (We left our children with their grandparents.)When we booked flight tickets our permanent visas had not come through. One week before departure we got our visas - thus entered Oz as permanent residents. We flew Emirates (crap airline).

In September 2006 we immigrated. Flew Singapore airline (excellent) and were allowed extra baggage allowances as immigrants. Just wondering if this was so because maybe:
a) we used different airlines, or
b) the first time we travelled it was without our children?

Just a thought..............

GaryKristensen

You could try booking your extra baggage on as sports equipment, disguised as a set of golf clubs or a bicycle box.

Sports equipment usually attracts a set fee. Within the EU it is normally £15 each way. Not sure if you'd get away with it, but it would be cheaper than being charged per KG with a normal suitcase full of shoes.

I think you get 20kg per set of sports equipment allowance.

Worth a phone call or a bit of time to check out their website at least?

Pollyana

Very few airlines do the free extra allowance now anyway, generally only Emirates and Singapore, on permanent unvalidated visas and one-way tickets.
A few have a deal where they offer higher allowances to migrants with more expensive tickets, but most now cannot do it as the financial oressures are too great - far more people migrating now, far more people aware of the possibility of extra baggage for free, and the higher costs of fuel etc mean they just can't be as generous as they used to be. Every bit of extra weight means extra fuel, so by charging for the weight they make more money. Simple ecomonics I'm afraid.

Centurion

Actually this varies from airline to airline. In particular most airlines do not offer you any additional allowance in economy. The sports goods are counted toward your total and as an item of luggage. Any additional weight and you could be looking at around AU$50 per kilo (I think Qantas is $48 on LHR-OZ).

If you know you want to arrive with lots and dont want to risk it, why dont you just ship it to yourself using a company like excess baggage at a much reduced rate. Takes about 1 or 2 weeks to get there.

chris and farideh

We didnt have any problem with getting our 40kg allowance we flew with Singapore airline earlier this year on a one way ticket, we came last year to do our reccie.
We even got email from them saying we were entitle to it, I dont know if things have changed in 8 months.

Wendy

No they haven't - you were just lucky It was definitely the same rules as we got an e-mail from Singapore Airlines saying we would get 40kgs if we had an unvalidated Australian PR visa and we got here before you.

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To the OP: see if you can plead with them which airline have you got?

peeps

We will be validating soon and enquired at the time would we be entitled to the 40 kgs when we go one way. The singapore rep that I'm dealing with was adamant that we will have no problems getting the extra baggage allowance on our one way and has said that once our tickets have 40kg on them we will not encounter a problem. Still feel a bit nervous about it though but I guess if its on the tickets, then we are fine. Should I have her email me that in writing too??

chris and farideh

Get her to give it to you in writting, we had to show our letter at the airport, both at LHR & Singapore, as we had 4 night stopover.

peeps

Thanks for that.

Mr Anderson

use sevenseas as we had 5 boxes and they come highly recommended. They were tea chest size and we struggled to fill the 5th and it cost 85 for first box and 45 for each one after door to door, and had boxes on our doorsteppa f ew days later with bubble wrap and tape etc all included, very pro and very reliable

cheap as chuips at about 200 quid for 5 tea chests. Took 5 weeks door to door