Mairead

Hi All,

I know there have been many many threads on extra baggage allowance but this is a little different. we plan on flying out to Melbourne as soon as our visas are in our hands but as we live in Ireland I have been wondering about the additional baggage. I am aware you can get additional baggage allowance from a number of airline operators however how does this work when flying from Ireland as you will need to get an aerlingus flight from Ireland to the UK. Anyone got any ideas?

Buzzy--Bee

Have you considered flying via the USA and getting 46kg each without any questions asked?

You might be able to fly direct from Ireland to LA with some airlines, I'm guessing.

Buzzy

paul30

could always head over here on the ferry no limit to baggage on there

Mairead

Thats true. Didn't think of going the US route. Food for thought!!

Anyone do it with aerlingus and get away with it.

kkwall36

Hi,

Thought some people would find the below message from Emirates regarding Baggage allowance of interest.


"The baggage allowance of 20kg in Economy Class is standard across the Emirates network and you also have 7kgs hand luggage for each adult.

For passengers migrating to Australia only there is an additional allowance of 20kgs per adult/child (meaning 40kgs in total per adult/child)(agreed between British and Australian governments), however it is subject to strict controls:

*It is valid for UK departing passengers holding British passports only.

*The passengers must hold a migration visa (which should be attached in the passengers passport) stating INDEFINITE STAY. The allowance will not be provided for visas marked with 1, 5, 10year etc Business Visa (even though the intention might be to obtain indefinite stay on arrival).

*It is not valid if you have a stopover (i.e. exit the airport) in Dubai or anywhere else on the way.

*Tickets must be one-way (no return date or open returns)

*This allowance does not apply to Business or First Class.

*You must not have entered Australia on the visa already

If you have not yet made a booking and intend to book through us by telephone, please advise us of this at the time of the original booking, and the allowance can be changed (subject to receiving fax copies of the migration visa). Please note that if you book online at www.emirates.com you must notify us immediately so that we can change the allowance.

If you intend to book through a travel agent, you must advise them of the required allowance before tickets are issued on the booking - If tickets are issued without changing the allowance, it cannot be done afterwards and it will not be granted. If the travel agent is in any doubt, please ask them to refer to their "Nett Directive" with Emirates.

If you have made a booking and not yet had tickets issued, please contact whomever made the reservation for it to be altered before the tickets are issued."


Basically, provided your visa is for an "indefinite stay", you will receive the 40kg allowance with Emirates as long as you notify them when booking.


If like me, you are on a provisional visa, then you wont qualify and will be left with 20kgs, and 7kgs of hand luggage.


Off to tell the kids to leave all there favourite toys behind!!

Craig822

Bizarrely enough we booked our flights last night for Christmas (FINALLY!) with Air New Zealand. Travelling via LA for 6 days in Disney/Hollywood then onto Sydney and Perth. The allowance is 23kg per bag and 2 bags each. However a maximum of 32kg for one bag so I guess the trick is to take two.

As there are 4 of us then thats a lot of Kgs in my opinion.

derab

Just make sure you are under about 25Kg in each bag.
they are not scared to charge you excess between the 23Kg and the total..

Buzzy--Bee

It's not "excess", it's a heavy bag handling fee which apparently now is $50 per bag between 25 and 32kg and we found it was only charged on internal US flights.

We carried over 200kg to Australia via the US with four stops. Here's how we did it -

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=463889

Buzzy

Swerv-o

Yes, this is correct, so for $50 per bag, you are effectively upgrading your baggage allowance to 64 kg per person. It's much cheaper than having the same mass of baggage shipped or flown as unaccompanied baggage.


S

jellibaby

We flew Singapore. Their policy is an extra 20kg EACH for permanent residence VISA holders - an extra 5kg is your VISA is provisional or temporary. You must be on a one-way ticket with no stopovers. We are on provisional VISAs so only packed an extra 5kg and it was tight, in fact we were over. But when we got to the check-in girl she seemed surprised we had not packed the extra 20kg each !!!!!!! Bugger ................. if we HAD taken an extra 20kg we'd have got the by-the-rules person! I wouldn't care we left loads of t-shirts and jeans and stuff in the hotel as we knew we were going to be over weight!!!!!! :curse:

scrubbedexpat001

First time we came over in 2001 with Singapore Airlines, we all got the cheap 1-way migrant flight and I got the additional 20kgs allowance (guess who actually used it tho) other 2 only got the cheap flights as they have Aussie passports. We also had a 5 day stopover in Singapore and there were no problems at all.

This time (Nov 2007) we all got the cheap flights but with Qantas this time from the Scotland to Perth and I got the additional 20kgs allowance (again someone else seemed to use all this (the check-in peeps didn't care who had it, as long as we didn't go over 80gks total). This time we had a 4 day stopover in Hong Kong and again here was no hassle with the allowance.

As for hand luggage, this time we decided to take the p1$$ !, why, well we'd had enough of being the "good little flyers" taking only the correct amount of hand luggage on board (usually one backpack each weighing not more that 7 kgs plus a handbag and a laptop case), but we've been on so many flights where people obviously were well over their carry-on allowance (one guy even bought his guitar in the cabin) that this time we decided to be those people.

So this time we left Scotland with a backpack each (3 in total one had a PS2 in it), plus a laptop and wife's handbag (which is actually a small backpack). In Hong Kong we got a few extras including a new PS3 (my treat - wife gets clothes I get electrical toys - ahem). The PS3 alone was about 7 kgs and should've been my only hand baggage. So on the last flight we had 3 backpacks, a laptop, a PS3 and another bag of shopping which we managed to successfully sneak past a woman checking you only had 1 piece of hand luggage (she was busy trying to explain to some bloke that he had to check in his quite large suitcase as it couldn't go on-board).

The flight was full and so was the luggage thing above my head (with my stuff for once )