Had a horrible experience today on an award SYD-MEL flight.

Some of it was I didn't research the logistics enough. I had to drop off a rental car which was in the international terminal and I didn't appreciate how far the domestic terminal was.

I was late in dropping off the car, almost an hour before scheduled departure.

I was directed to the shuttle to Domestic, far away from the car rental garage. There I saw Virgin Australia luggage drop-off.

I forgot to wait in priority lane. When I got to the agent, she wanted to check my carryon and personal item. Both are full of electronics, for laptop, drone, camera, iPad. My carryon was over 12.5 kg and my camera backpack was over 8 kg by itself.

They said they started strictly enforcing the 8 kg limit for BOTH carryon and personal item this month. I had told her I'd flown Virgin Australia flights several times with exactly this carryon and camera bag and much of the same contents.

She said she would do me a favor and let me check in the carryon -- "gesture of good will." Yeah the difference in enforcement is not such great good will.

So I took out my laptop, drone and another accessory bag containing more electronics. She said I could put the laptop in my carryon. So much for no lithium batteries in the cargo hold.

She said if I turned it off I could put the laptop in, so I did.

As it is, I had my backpack and 3 items I was carrying.

When I boarded, I was the last to board, with about 10-15 minutes before scheduled departure. The bins in the first 15 rows were packed. Maybe they weren't as heavy as mine but there was a couple ahead of me and they had 3 carryon suitcases.

So maybe the enforcement is still selective.

But if this is the new normal, how do international passengers who arrive with more generous baggage allowances or enforcement transition to domestic flights?

Because she implied that Quantas and other domestic carriers were the same.

My being MP Gold doesn't seem to have had any bearing.

Oh and when I arrive in MEL, I found out they didn't get the bags on my flight. So my flight arrived around 12:30 PM, the next flight was due around 1:45 PM. I could have waited an hour but they said they'd deliver and they finally did, around 7:15 PM.