Excess baggage allowance
 

Hi,

I am curious on the rules and regulations of ST + on excess baggage issues. Is it true that this is NOT a benefit from one partner to another? Meaning it is only limited to the airline you are E+ with and fly?

For example if I am E+ on AF/KL can I get the excess baggage allowance for example travelling on AZ or CO?

I tried looking for this on the various websites (both airlines and ST), but I see always that this benefit is limited to only on the airline where you have the status?

If this is the case, I find this rather a weak side of the ST elite system. If I am not mistaken, for other alliances, this benefit is systemwide for all partners within the alliance.

:)

Extra baggage allowance for BA Elites on BA is nil, unless I am mistaken. So replicating this benefit across all OW airlines would not be too difficult. ;)

AFAIK only Star alliance has this alliancewide. That being said having both DL and AF/KL Plat I have never been charged overweight when flying other ST carriers.

My experiences in this area on ST have been very positive, although it is always a slightly different process each time. I am E+ on ST and often travel with excess baggage for my job, either pieces or weight or both, and I rarely pay a charge. First, it depends greatly on which airline you are starting with and checking in with...if they allow it for their own customers, then the bag will be checked through to final destination no matter which airline follows, including out of network airlines. If you are starting with an ST member that does not have that policy but are connecting to one that does, it usually is just a bit of friendly bartering at the check-in desk, but keep it very friendly! because that first agent can kill the deal if he/she gets their back up. Have a good funny story ready...like your spouse found an absolutely wonderful cast iron lawn ornament and you just had to bring it back. Counter bartering often (but not always) works even with out of network carriers if you are connecting to a TATL flight that has different rules than the local domestic carrier. If it is only one of the two bags that are overweight, or a third bag that is much smaller than the primary two, that helps. Any leg in F will help tremendously, even if it is just an upgrade, especially in developing nations with inexperienced agents. It is slightly more effective to come at peak checkin time to add a bit of pressure to the agent, but it leaves you less time for a backup plan (one airline forced me to check a bag as cargo at the last minute, but the cargo office was across town, and the cargo goes on the same *@#$* aircraft, go figure). But if you stay cheerful, be persistent, and act like you have done it this way a hundred times, it usually works.

Hi,

Well, I brought this topic up because after so many years of being a ST E+, I had an incident recently with AF at CDG. I was coming in from Japan on the code-share JAL flight. I did manage to talk my way out of this in Japan, as I think they did not understand much of the ST rules on this.

I could have checked my back all the way to AMS, but I wanted to remove things in CDG for a friend I was meeting there. When I rechecked my bag, the guy made a big fuss and actually printed out an excess baggage payment. I was a bit naive cause after so many years I have never encountered such problems, and told with him that this was eligible since I was E+. I did not know he was right at that time so I was a bit angry.

I was evil when I saw that he did sent my bag through with the priority and destination tag. I did not pay for the excess bagagge (nearly 200 Euros). Though my bag did arrive..:p

When I did check later back home, I than noticed that this was actually a rule that only members of the specific airline could have such extra baggage. So I was just wondering why.

:)