hopalong

Looking at this purely from a cost point of view, not a "which airline is nicer to travel with" point of view.

I am off to settle in Oz, already validated visa.

BA website says they only charge £72 per extra bag, they don't charge by the Kg. I e-mailed BA and they confirmed this and said I could take up to a maximum of ten bags (OK, then we are into "won't fit on an airport trolly territory!). https://www.britishairways.com/trave..._gb#excessbags

Strikes me that as it is cheaper and quicker to fly from London to Sydney via Asia that this would make more sense than paying about £100 - £300 more to fly via USA and get the 2 x 23kg allowance. Plus if needs be you can take more than just one extra bag. Additionally I have been quoted about £350 to airfrieght 50kg, I think I could possibly get this down to £200 if I used a different company. So it'd be cheaper to take 2 x 23kg cases with me than airfrieght it. Though logistically 4 x 23kg cases might get interesting, even with a taxi!

This strikes me as a huge difference between BA and other airlines. Has anyone done this? Am I missing something?

many thanks

bcworld

No you're not missing anything. They overhauled their baggage policy last year. Standard economy allowance is now 1 bag (of 23kg), but you can't have 2 bags which add up to 23kg.....you must pay for an extra bag in that case.

The rates for excess bags are very reasonable.

It's convenient as long as your final destination is Sydney, as obviously BA don't fly to any other Aussie airports anymore.

hopalong

Thanks so much for confirming that.
I hadn't realised they only flew to Sydney (thankfully that is where I am going), maybe that is why it hasn't been a "big thing" on this site, or maybe it was and I missed it.
I guess also that you only need that big additional baggage the once, other flights there and bag can just be normal. So once you are there there are more important things to talk about!
I suspect that I need to be careful my flights are BA and not a partner, which of course still come up on BA's own website. I doubt a partner would see it as a BA booking or honour their policies.
Many thanks for the help.
Sarah

bcworld

Realistically a flight to Sydney/Aus will only be offered on ba.com partnered with Qantas. I suspect that Qantas probably would accept the BA baggage policy. If you wanted to do it to a city other than Sydney, I'd make sure that the flight from London to Singapore was on BA (who will then tag the bags to the final destination anyway), and then you could take a Qantas flight onward to cities other than Sydney. Would definitely be worth checking in advance though that you can purchase the additional bags for this.

mittas

I looked at one point at coming to sydney via US as their baggage allowances were bigger but once I discovered the BA per bag policy I changed my mind. It was really convenient - plus you can pay online in advance so no delays when you check in.

mittas

oh and if memory serves correct - even if it's a codeshare, as long as you book via BA then it's still fine. Give them a call to double check but I'm pretty sure this was the case. Its certainly usually only Qantas they codeshare with.

BrightYellowGun

I booked with Qantas, but the first part of my flight is a codeshare, Manchester to Heathrow on BA. Their baggage allowances are quite different, I'll have to give them a call to find out which applies to me. I've been planning for the Qantas allowances, but the BA ones would probably work out better.

Why do they have to make it so complicated?!