Newark to Nantucket: $80 for an 8’6 board bag stuffed with gear (my 6’4 battail quad “modern fish,” a spring suit, a body board, two sets of swimfins) No hassles.
Nantucket to Newark, on the same plane: $95 for the same bag and gear, 20 minutes of begging just to convince them that it would fit inside the SAME CARGO SPACE it came to the island in, 10 more minutes of shifting all the gear to one end of the bag, then folding the empty end over and wrapping it up with duct tape (hey, if you can’t duck it, f*$! it!), and an hour and a half of my priceless time fixing the crushed tail points AND nose when I got home!
Morals of the story: (1) Never argue with an airline baggage handler, especially if you’re right and they’re wrong. That just makes them madder. (2) The number of “FRAGILE” stickers you slap on your board bag is inversely porportional to the damage they’ll do. (3) Never fly Continental if you can help it. And (4), there are no rules about boards and fees that mean anything. The person checking you in can type in whatever fee they want, and it’s up to the person loading the bag onto the plane whether or not your board makes it to your destination. (I was actually told this by the woman checking my luggage.)
Continental blows. A couple buddies were flying to Costa on Continental a few years back and were charged over $800 for their boards. They had confirmed the pricing schedule prior to flight day, only to get to the check-in counter and find out otherwise. Multiple boards per bag and charged per board rather than for one oversized piece of luggage. Other airlines do that as well. I’ll never understood the reasoning on that one. I asked 'em once as an analogy that if my suitcase were over the weight limit, would I be charged per sock? They didn’t get it.
Multiple boards per bag and charged per board rather than for one oversized piece of luggage. Other airlines do that as well. I'll never understood the reasoning on that one.
the reasoning is simple: you have no other option so they can take some extra money.
Multiple boards per bag and charged per board rather than for one oversized piece of luggage. Other airlines do that as well. I’ll never understood the reasoning on that one.
the reasoning is simple: you have no other option so they can take some extra money.
I guess I should have said, “aside from the obvious.”
i would rather not go if i had to travel Cuntential airlines…it is my experience that there is always another airline…usually cheaper that CA----therfore don’t ever fly them
Last time I flew Continental they broke about 8" off the nose of a 2 month old 6’6". Double board bagged. Of course it was on the way to my destination and was the only board I brought. The worst part of it was how they handled it. I had to sue them in small claims court to get them to reimburse me for the value of the board. Once they were served with the court papers I got hassled by their rep for about three weeks on a daily basis trying to convince me that I wouldn’t win and was wasting my time. I told them that the court house was 2 miles from my work and that it really was no inconvenience for me. In the end they settled for full replacement value a few days before the court date. Too late. I never flew with then again, business or personal. And I never will.
Almost forgot the slimiest part. Before they told me they wouldn’t pay for it they told me I had to mail them the original reciept for the board and the receipt they gave me for the excess luggage charge for the board in order to be reimbursed. Later they denied recieving or even asking for the receipts and told me that I wouldn’t will in court without the original receipt. Luckily I had copies of all receipts and a signed estimate from a local surf shop. Total slimeball company.
A long time ago I flew to Micronesia with CA. I took one of those plastic boards cause i figured it would be totally indestructible. Just put it in an unpadded canvas bag. When I picked it up from baggage claim I noticed it was wet. Then I noticed it smelled kind of funny. The baggage handlers had peed on it. I figured they tried to stomp it and when they couldn’t dammage it they got frustrated and pissed on it.
Horror stories. I used to get nervous packing a snowboard in a coffin bag padded with all of my clothes - these stories are practically filling me with dread at the thought of flying with boards. Thankfully most of the short term trips I’m planning involve either a car with a roof rack or the van that is high on my shopping list.
The stomp/pee one is just wrong though; I don’t know how people can be so sick and malicious.
I think the best idea about charges is to have the company policy printed out directly from their website (they should all have terms and conditions on display if you can dig deep enough) and if they try to over charge you pull out the terms and point to the proper charges.
The “per board” thing is just blatant robbery though, I don’t care if that’s in their terms or not - out of order.
Horror stories. I used to get nervous packing a snowboard in a coffin bag padded with all of my clothes
Canada air managed to ding my snowboard, pushing the steel rail one inch into the wood and fibreglass. And that is a board that can take on hitting rocks with only a few scratches as a result. If that had been a surfboards I think it would have been in two pieces. I wonder how they did it???
Also why do they let fricking golf clubs go through free, and boards cost $$.
Anyhow, stick to the airlines that are service friendly, and stick to the ones that have more routes to the warm Pacific waters. Not to rag on it, but Continental is a East Coast Airlines, and Continental is a barely solvent Airlines…last week they lost my bag (all my clothing) for a business trip. Finally got it at 3 am. Combine the East Coast attitude, with the air of insolvency in the work place and you get what you pay for…what foetaboutit, aba fungu you frickin Jersy surf prick!! That’s probaby what they told you.
fly US Air, United, Delta on the East Coast. If going to Hawaii, Fly Hawaiian…still expensive, but your boards will arive in one piece.
I think there all about $80 each way for 2 boards. Almost better to buy a board when you get there, then give it to a kid on the beach when done.
United is now $85 per board, each way, with a max of 2 boards per bag.
We’ve decided to just buy used boards when we get to Kauai and then put em back on the rack when we leave. It ends up being much cheaper in the end. The bummer is that you don’t get to ride your own board but the other side is that there a ton of really good used boards in Hawaii.
Howzit resinhead, I think that Aloha is the better way to go instead of Hawaiian. Here in Hawaii hawaiian has a worse reputation when it comes to handling boards. I’ve never had any problems with Aloha. On one trip to the mainland for a trip to Mexico Hawaiian lost my board for 92 hrs( pretty hard to lose a board ), Now if they hadn’t found it by 96 hrs they would have to replace it since losing a board is totally different than if they ding it. Had some friends fly Hawaiian and as they sat in their seats watching the baggage being loaded they saw the handlers tossing big suit cases on top of their boards. They went balistic and actually got off the plane and confronted the handlers who called security. But in the end with so many witnesses they had to pay for the boards. Over the years Hawaiian has been implamented in many baggage thefts which has been as high as $150,000.00 in one year. I think that was what happened to my lost board,a handler stole ot thinking it was a new board and after taking it home and finding out it wasn’t new he probably brought it back. Aloha,Kokua
I would have to say Hawaiian would be the way to go in Hawaii. Your comment about Hawaiian having luggage ripped off is something that happened about 15 years ago if my memory serves me. It’s a whole different airline today. Now they have all new aircraft and the best service to Hawaii. That said, there isn’t an airline out there that someone hasn’t had a bad experience with at one time or another. You do hear a lot of Continental horror stories though.
I haven’t flown Aloha too much? San Diego has a direct on Hawaiian so I really don’t need to shop around. Other flights to Hawaii me take me through, LA, Oakland, Houston, or Maui. My buddy wife works for Continental at the AlaMo shopping mall, so I sometimes get the $200 rt bro deal. But my boards always get a little somethin, somethin to remember the trip by. So far I’ve had good luch with Hawaiian…knock on wood.
I guess the less legs to the trip the better? if the baggage guys only handle the board once or twice all the better. less chance for the Karate chop.
Howzit oldopguy, Actually they got busted for again just over a year or so ago. I used Hawaiian air for over 30 years but got tired of dinged or lost boards and since using Aloha air I've had no problems. Aloha has the new Boeing planes that are great even if they are smaller. As for the DC 10's, My father was in charge of Technical staff writing for Douglas Aircraft for over 20 years so every thing written about all their planes was his responsability and he used to tell us they weren't the safest plane in the sky. The only good thing about Hawaiian is they are the best when it comes to being on time. The last time I flew Hawaiian (2001) the plane was definitly not new and looked in not good shape. Here on Kauai we joke about the fact that if you take trip with your board and just fly to Oahu with them you have over a 50% chance of finding dings on your board. Doesn't matter to me one way or the other what air lines people use, just know I done with Hawaiian.Aloha,Kokua
Horror stories. I used to get nervous packing a snowboard in a coffin bag padded with all of my clothes
Canada air managed to ding my snowboard, pushing the steel rail one inch into the wood and fibreglass. And that is a board that can take on hitting rocks with only a few scratches as a result. If that had been a surfboards I think it would have been in two pieces. I wonder how they did it???
