"playing" with baggage rules on international flights
 

checking-in Gisela and her girlfriend today in Zurich for the ski (and Gisela's 50th anniversary present) trip to Canada/USA I thought about how different baggage rules could work in our favour.

The average check-in rules for US/Canada are:
*2 pieces in any class, max 32 kg each = total of 64 kg

The Swissair rules (except for USA/Canada) for "the rest of the world" are: no piece-limit, weight limits of 20kg eco, 30kg business, 40kg first.

Airlines accept to check bags (not tickets/boarding passes) trough - even if ongoing flights are not with Partner airlines. Today Gisela took Swissair-business to Frankfurt (European baggage concept) and than UA to Chicago and furtheron to Vancouver. The SR and the UA-flights are with seperate tickets.

Swissair doesn't look at the weight of the (double) Ski-pack (that weight is not added to the total weight) - otherwise she would have had more than the 30 kg in total allowed for the first (european) segment.So having no overall-weight problem to worry, Gisela decided to check in also one (Rolly) handbag making it a total of 3 check-in-bags (which would be one to much under the US rules with UA). As the bags are checked-trough to Vancouver (with a pick-up before costums in ORD and rechecking there) it seems that she can "beat" UA's-piece restricting rules - and on the way back from the US (with hopefully some presents for me adding up the total weight), the higher weight allowance (64 kg instead of only 30 kg with Swissair) at check-in-time in Aspen with UA she again will "beat" Swissair's weight-restrictions for the last Frankfurt-Zurich segment (as baggage again are checked through Aspen-Denver-Chicago-Frankfurt-Zurich).

And to add to the big carry-on-baggage confusion: the current SR-rules for handluggage (for all flights): 2 pieces, (max 20 kg total in first, "any size"), (max 18kg in business, size1= 55x40x20cm, size2= max 20cm in width placed under the seat in front). (max 10 kg in eco, total for both pieces together 55x40x20cm). In addition to this, a lady's handbag (Gisela's is bigger than my Apple Powerbook!), an overcoat, one duty-free bag, one small camera. I wonder if UA has any templates at ORD's international terminal when my ladies recheck baggage for the next flight-segment to Vancouver (after costum).

Rudi, no templates at T5 in OHare. it is a common recheck/security check area with the different counters for UA vs AA.

They should be OK, plus the UA Concierge should take care of them.

Gisela (tf) just confirmed jamiel's info - thank you.

I checked in with UA at LAX a few days ago for a 1st class flight to London. I had a large garment bag since it's a 3 week trip. There was no way it was going to fit through the template. I tried sneaking it through by lifting the template, but they caught me.

So I unpacked half of my bag and sent through the items one by one. Shoes, books, etc. Soon my bag was small enough to be smashed through the template. On the other side of the x-ray, I repacked my bag.

What a f***ing joke.