Originally Posted by
checkerboard
At check-in in Sao Paulo yesterday, I asked the SAA check-in desk about this. They were 100% certain: in business class, 2x32kg would be my allowance for the return trip, regardless under which carrier's flight number the ticket is booked.
I was glad to know of the 32kg limit, and it only occurred to me after walking away that this didn't jive with the 3PC allowance mentioned on my ticket.
Will report back with whatever happens.
Back in Brazil now - and the arbitrariness that is SAA will never cease to amaze me. The other day in JNB, I attempted to check-in for GRU with two bags: one 32kg, the other 16kg (two six-bottle travel packs of wine, nestled in a snugly fitting canvas bag for extra protection). To my dismay, the 32kg wasn't any problem at all, but the 16kg was subject of much discussion. Specifically: the check-in agent (and her supervisor) both insisted that: a) it is not allowed to send wine-boxes on the normal baggage-belt, because they require fragile handling, b) it it not allowed to send boxes for fragile handling if they are inside of a bag, because of an alleged rule prohibiting bags from being afforded fragile handling. I can't even begin to imagine a rationale for so arbitrary a policy - and because I've never seen it posted anywhere (nor ever had a problem sending wine boxes in bags) - I'm fairly certain they were inventing this from whole cloth. It's nuts.
Anyway - the solution they proposed was for me to remove the wine boxes from the bag, check each of them in as an individual piece of luggage, which could then be sent for fragile-handling. End result was that, at SAA's insistence, I flew with three pieces (32kg + 8kg + 8kg) - which didn't conform with their own policy (2 x 32kg) or that of LATAM (3 x 23kg).
If ever there were an airline where YMMV - this is the one!