Anyone notice the outrageous fees KLM charges for extra baggage? I'm trying to book an extra suitcase on a one way flight from Europe to San Francisco, and it would cost me 192 Euros for one extra bag!

Why does KLM charge such ridiculous amounts?

Because they are a commercial operation.

Thanks for the insight.

Being a commercial operation doesn't explain how their charges are double that of other airlines, if not more. Additionally, it's pretty outrageous that their prices have tripled since I last looked about a week ago, when they were at 60-70 Euros.

But yeah, 'commecrial operation' totally explains it.

From the price point I'm guessing this time you are traveling in J and it's 190 Euros for your third or maybe fourth piece of luggage?
From my experience the first and second piece of luggage is usually reasonably priced but when you get to the third and forth pieces of luggage the price jumps much much higher.

Believe it or not but 190 Euros is not bad, some carriers that use a weight based system and not a piece based system charge a percentage of the full fare flight you are on per KG (CZ for example), it can get really expansive, for example having to pay 600$ for an extra 20 KG luggage between China and Australia...

If you want outrageous baggage fees, look to ryanair. I once was able to get a business class KLM flight cheaper than ryanair when the total baggage was taken into account.

I had about 50kg of extra equipment to carry to site, and ryanair flew direct from my local airport to the destination.

You bring up a valid point, many times when flying with lots of luggage it makes more sense to fly J then Y after we add all the additional baggage fees.

It also emphasises the importance of elite status for some of us. When I was going regularly to Asia up until last year I always needed a lot of luggage due to my research equipment, after a while I started to notice some methods of how to avoid paying extra baggage fees, for example I noticed that when flying from the EU or Israel onto Asia it's best to pack exactly up to your check-in allowance and take the rest as hand luggage, sometimes it will be gate checked for free, other times nobody will notice/care. On the way back from Asia I noticed that they are a lot less strict about charging oversized/overweight luggage, especially if you are one of the following: from the EU, flying J, elite status, using a corporate account, wearing a suit etc.. they prefer to let it slide and not to confront a customer that they perceive as "high value".
In fact I had a flight with AF and I had 3 check-in bags that were all overweight (35-40 KG each) but the check-in agent said nothing to me.

Hi everyone, sorry for resurrecting an old thread.

I just have a similar query about extra luggage. I'm flying J this coming April, and as standard have a check in allowance of 3 pieces at 32 kg. I've bought another piece of baggage allowance online through MyTrip on KLM.com and was wondering if the max. weight for this piece will also be 32 kg?

I'm just a bit wary since the excess baggage fees information on KLM.com suggests that the max. weight is at 23 kg, although MyTrip simply just shows my new allowance of 4 pieces with the standard following information

I would really appreciate any insights, many thanks!

Sorry to bump this up again, but does anyone have any experience with this in J? On the KLM app I notice that after purchasing extra baggage, my allowance would either say

CLUBEUROPE can bring up to 4 check-in baggage items up to 32 KG each
or
CLUBEUROPE can bring up to 4 check-in baggage items up to 23 KG each

It changes randomly each time I pull up the page on the app.

J on AF/KL is always 32KG with AFKL. Probably just a website bug displaying an error.

The least understood airline I ever encountered in this regard is Iberia. with Iberia J passengers get 23KG bags but will not be charged the overweight luggage fee if they bring luggage up to 32KG. it took a couple of phone calls to understand this since the official allowance with them is still 23 even for J.

Thanks very much TLVtraveler, I appreciate your comments. You're completely right, I just flew a several days ago and nobody at check-in batted an eyelid with regards to the weight.