Carry on only saves you a few minutes at baggage claim, but costs you schlepping bags through security, onto the plane, stuffing them in an overhead bin, if there is space, often being force to gate check the bag, and limits what you can take with you.
Checking a bag frees you from acting as porter and baggage loader/unloader and allows you to take a full size tube of toothpaste with you without fear of being selected for secondary screening and having it confiscated at the airport. With a checked bag, I can move up a size on the bag, and toss in a second pair of shoes, and an extra shirt or two. I always have space to bring home something special that I find when I am traveling.
I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have traveled without checking a bag. It happens on a very rare one night trip, maybe when time was tight on the other end to get to where I needed to be after the plane arrived, or the time I went to office and learned that I needed to be in Florida the next morning at 9:00 AM to sign paperwork selling Dad's house, bought a plane ticket, booked a rental car and hotel, and went to the airport without returning home (I was carrying a change of underwear and a fresh shirt in my messenger bag because travel was unpredictable at that time.)
I get free checked bags on the two airlines I fly most often as an airline credit card perk. I pay an annual fee on those cards of about $100 a year, if I fly three or four times a year, I save that back in checked baggage fees what the cards cost me. I get earlier boarding zones as a perk, making it more likely that there is room in the overhead for my messenger bag (that I never leave home without.) And the airline miles add up from using those cards to pay day to day expenses. Again this spring we will be flying transAtlantic on seats paid for with airline miles that were mostly earned buying groceries.
Unburden your travel, check a bag.
I'm with you I check those bitches. Beside if the paparazzi is near by, I don't want a picture of me struggling and schlepping luggage, breaking a sweat. Get me to the plane for my gin drink!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI have this vision, of you in a floppy hat, strolling through an airport.
DeleteOh see, you have seen me at the airport then......
DeleteWe are the opposite and for a holiday up to two weeks, a cabin suitcase is adequate. A nice young man offered to put my case into the overhead bin during our last flight. While it makes me feel very old, I don't knock a young man back. We've never had trouble getting space in the bins for our cases and backpacks. We are out of the airport so much quicker.
ReplyDeleteWe used to bother with airline points and the best we got was a return flight to Sydney, but the airport charges etc cost a good bit and they weren't covered. We don't travel enough to be bothered with them now, and here it is a nightmare to try to find seats that can be bought with points.
I pack more than that for a two night trip.
DeleteEverybody here stuffs the largest bag allowable and the stuffs it in the overhead and then tries to pass off a bully loaded backpack as a carry-on, all to avoid checked bag fees. It's a nightmare. On the other hand, seats for points aren't difficult to find.
DeleteOver here in Europe, budget airlines such as Ryanair and EasyJet make a fortune from their luggage charges and passengers frequently feel obliged to cram what they need into carry-on bags. The required dimensions of these bags will often catch people out.
ReplyDeleteThere is a US carrier that charges extra for everything (checked bags, seat selection, larger carry on bags) by the time you add all of those together, it is not any cheaper than flying a real airline with some degree of service.
DeleteI have always checked a bag too. I agree with all your reasons why.
ReplyDeleteDignity in travel
DeleteI always carry-on, and I have never had trouble finding a space in the overhead. Fingers crossed, though, that this continues.
ReplyDeleteThe things I have seen stuffed in overhead bins
DeleteI check a bag most of the time. On my last trip to London though, I carried on and it was fine going to London. Coming home was a pain but that was because I stopped at the duty free on my way to the gate. And, of course, my plane was at the furthest gate.
ReplyDeleteI need to learn to travel lighter
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