Apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but I'm also confused about Air Canada policies regarding skis.
Firstly, the AC site says "Skis and poles, snowboard or wakeboard must be packaged in a rigid and/or hard shell container specifically designed for shipping". But the vast majority of ski bags I've seen for sale (I don't own one yet) are padded rather than rigid. Will they have a problem if I show up with a padded, non-rigid ski bag?
Secondly, what's this I hear about needing to pre-register ski equipment? I'm looking to book as a United codeshare on AC metal (ZRH-YYZ-SFO), so how would I pre-register?
From what I've read in this thread, pre-registration only matters if you want to count your boots and skis as one "piece" of luggage. So if I'm *A Gold and getting three checked bags for free, I can just show up un-pre-registered with one ski bag, one boot bag, and one other bag, and check 'em all for free, right?
Thanks.