angeleyes

hi there

anyone know of the most cost effective way to get 2 large trunks home to UK??

Is paying airline for excess baggage cheaper than air / sea..any ideas

thanks

Angeleyes

Englishmum

Which country are you in?

Some countries (eg. Asia/Pacific region) have the DHL 'Jumbo Boxes' where you pay a *flat fee* for a 'size' of the box you want according to the destination it's going to. You just fill it up with whatever you want and they can be v. reasonable indeed....might need to do a search on 'google' for "DHL + Jumbo box".

For example from the USA site:

http://www.dhl-usa.com/IntlSvcs/deta...es/DHLJumboBox

angeleyes

Thank you so much! I will do that

Bob

Excess luggage, that'll all depend on the airline, some are pretty cheap, some aren't, and it often depends on how busy the flight is.

If you have things that you don't need in a hurry, it's pretty cheap to just ship stuff over, but it'll take anyhing from 4 weeks to 6 months.

sej7278

I'd say ship it if it's heavy enough and you can wait for it to get there. That's what I'm doing.

A cubic meter (that's a lot!) will cost a total of about 200usd and will take about 30 days.

I'm going to ship 11 boxes of stuff that way, using www.bgiworldwide.com - their website sucks, but Heather who answers their Email is very helpful.

Excess baggage will kill you - I remember Virgin charged me about 200gbp when I flew UK->USA, and that was just for a single box with a computer in it. I've had similar charges with Ryan Air when going UK->France.

Bob

BA only charged £60 for a couple extra suitcases that were well over weight last year...

SDER

Englishmum, do you know if its a door - door service, or if you have to meet it at the airport? Also, do you get charge extra at customs?
Thanks!!

Englishmum

Er....that link for DHL actually does say that it is a 'door to door' service LOL!

Customs charges obviously depend on what you're sending back....generally if anything is labelled on the customs form as 'used' or 'secondhand' eg. 12 months old or more, you shouldn't be charged for it (I take it you're not packing valuable stuff like jewellery/paintings?)....but don't take my word for it - please do check on the HM Customs & Excise website!

Best to give DHL a ring to make initial enquiries....when I lived in Singapore they advertised the 'Jumbo Boxes' all the time on the telly...complete with an elephant LOL!

SDER

Thanks Englishmum,
The reason I ask is that when I called DHL, she told me I would have to pick it up at Heathrow! And then the site said its door to door - so i dont know which ones right.
She said that the container is 16 inches by about 18 inches, which is kind of small...but hey, its only about 191 dollars.