Excess baggage - unable to prebook
 

Hi,

I'm new, hello! I'm moving to Wellington, arriving on the 17th January :)

I was hoping somebody might be able to give me their experiences with excess baggage.

I'm flying from Glasgow to Wellington on the 15th, with a British Airways flight to London, then Air New Zealand to Wellington (via Hong Kong and Auckland).

Apparently I can't add my extra bag in advance even though it is all on one booking, due to the 2 different airlines. I tried to see if I could add them on separately with each airline, but they say they can't and I'll have to do it at the airport, but space isn't guaranteed.

I'm pretty confident it won't be a problem for the Glasgow to London leg, but has anybody heard of the Air New Zealand flights being full and not taking an excess bag? I don't want to be stuck with a packed suitcase at the airport.

I've looked at shipping, but the best value way seems to be for me to take it on the flight with me.

Thanks in advance!

Alison

Re: Excess baggage - unable to prebook
 

If the worst comes to the worst there is an office at Heathrow for the Excess Baggage Co and they will airfreight the bag for you from there. Hopefully you won't need it but bear it in mind just in case. I've shipped stuff to Aus from there a couple of times on the same day as flying out :)

Re: Excess baggage - unable to prebook
 

have you weighed everything and seen if you are likely to be over? we saw many people when we came at the weigh machines with clothing all over the floor because they were so over it was ridiculous.
don't forget you get a carry on as well as a laptop sized bag. we made sure we had clothes, coats with lots of deep pockets (hubby bought the Wii over in his pockets :D )

check each airlines weight quota as we found the first leg allowed more than the second but was booked as one trip

Re: Excess baggage - unable to prebook
 

Hi Alison, we recently flew from London to nz with air nz, and took 4 extra cases as excess baggage, we just turned up at the airport with it and paid the extra - I did worry that they wouldn't have room for it on the flight but I phoned customer services and they said that rarely happens and if it does then they automatically put it on the next flight, so you won't be stranded at the airport with all your cases. Not sure about your first leg with BA though. Hope this helps - I also know that air nz have recently changed their excess baggage charges and I believe you can pre book it online. Hope this helps :)

Re: Excess baggage - unable to prebook
 

From what I can find, you can only pre-book excess baggage online at the time of booking, and I'm not sure how this would work with the 2 airlines.

The flight we are looking at is through the Air NZ Website via San Francisco, but Heathrow-San Fran with Virgin. I hope because this is on the website, we can have pre-booked excess baggage. Not sure if Virgin are a part of Star Alliance which is why you can book with them through the Air New Zealand website.

Re: Excess baggage - unable to prebook
 

Thanks for your tips! I've packed and definitely need the extra bag, so will just turn up with everything crossed on Tuesday at Glasgow airport! Positive thinking!!

RachelG12, I would recommend checking with them before booking you can pre-book for all flights. I could have booked a flight through the Air NZ website that included the BA connection (the only scheduled flights are BA Glasgow to London), but chose to book through Opodo as I could only get via LA on their website, and I didn't want to go that way and it was really expensive. My BA flight shows up when I check my booking on the Air NZ website, so it might not be automatic.

Excess baggage was part of how I chose my flights, and didn't imagine it would have ended up like this!!

Re: Excess baggage - unable to prebook
 

Thanks for the heads up.
Would you mind letting me know how much it cost you for excess baggage once you're settled and have Internet.
Safe trip
Rach x

Re: Excess baggage - unable to prebook
 

Hi Alison - I hope to be flying out of Glasgow too. Would you mind telling me the choices you found and the cost difference? Thanks.

Re: Excess baggage - unable to prebook
 

Air New Zealand changed a lt of rules in November and costs for things like extra pre-paid bags depends on when you booked and paid for your ticket.

You can book a pre-paid bag via their contact centre but they will charge extra as a service fee.

If you are travelling in Business class, I believe you can take an extra bag up to 23kg for free.

Re: Excess baggage - unable to prebook
 

If you fly Premier Class, you get an extra x1 piece of baggage. Business class is an extra 2 pieces (3 pieces check in). Not sire it's worth spending the extra £2-4k for the extra baggage mind :starsmile:

Re: Excess baggage - unable to prebook
 

Last time I did this BA simply contacted the downstream carrier (not ANZ though in my case), obtained their charge and came up with a single payment to BA and booked the extra case all the way through....