Extra Baggage Charges - South Africa to Brazil
 

I'll soon be flying CPT-x/JNB-GRU, all on SAA operated flights, as a stand-alone mileage redemption in business class, issued by UA.

Normal baggage allowance for the route seems to be the same in both economy and business class (2 x 32kg), which is kinda wierd from my perspective... would have thought business would have been granted a more generous allowance.

Anyway, I'll probably need to fly with three bags (just under 32kg each), and was trying to figure out what costs I'd incur to do so.

Found this page on the SAA site:
https://www.flysaa.com/manage-fly/ba...tional-baggage

And here, it seems I could be asked to pay either usd 100 for the extra bag, or ZAR 300. The latter would be fine...

Have I read/understood this correctly?

Brazil has strict controls on what airlines mist give free/can charge for baggage.

if flying from South Africa then you should be paying the ZAR amount.

Thanks for the reply... seems extra baggage will be surprisingly affordable.

Before you'd replied, I called the SAA call center to ask them, and was told something slightly different, namely, that ZAR 300 is the charge for domestic baggage, and ZAR 450 is the charge for international flights. Since the agent didn't seem to distinguish between international destinations, nor did she seem interested in what the website said, I gathered her advice could be disregarded.

For future reference of anyone interested, I'll report back on what's actually charged....

So: arrived at SAA check-in this morning with three bags, each just under 32kg. The third bag was flagged as chargeable by the check-in agent's computer, and indeed, I paid just ZAR 300 to get it all the way to Sao Paulo. It's a nuisance charge, but not an unreasonably onerous one.

One weird thing though: the ticketing desk agent that took my money first looked in an old, dilapidated 3-ring binder, where she found a photocopied sheet listing United Airlines baggage allowances. For reasons unclear, she was convinced that since UA issued my ticket, their baggage allowances would govern my journey, rather than the published allowances of SAA, the operating carrier. And so, on this basis, she told me I'd only be allowed 2 pieces at 23kg each. Needless to say, this was wildly incorrect. Luckily, my fast thinking check-in agent simply implied that the only issue was my extra piece, so we didn't need to discover how much this erroneous idea would have cost me.

I still don't get how/why both Business Class and Economy have the same allowance...

In my experience, its 23 per bag for Y and 32 per bag for J.
But then with SAA it depends on where you look or who you ask...:(

+1

Variation on this theme - with a codeshare twist
 

OK. Will again be flying GRU-JNB-GRU, on flights operated by SAA, but marketed as JJ8342/JJ8343.

On my e-ticket, the mentioned allowance this time is 3PC - which cool, if a bit surprising.

However: I have no idea if the maximum permitted weight of each piece is 23kg or 32kg. If straight SAA flights, 32kg would be the obvious answer. But because these are codeshare flights, and the JJ allowance (even in business) is just 23kg/piece, I have a doubt about what will actually be allowed (for free) by the SAA check-in computer.

Any ideas? For my wine schlepping, it makes a difference how many bags I must bring on the trip :)

The business class allowance as per the LATAM web site is 3 x 23kg; as per the SAA web site it is 2 x 32kg. It seems then that your e-ticket is referring to the JJ allowance.

But what will actually be enforced/allowed, I have no idea.

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!