photo credit: Simon_sees
Business Speaker Avoids Airline Fees
When I was on a trip to South Carolina recently as a college speaker in Columbia, South Carolina, I checked with US Air ahead of time to see if they had any airline baggage fees much like how most of the North American airlines have implemented. Business travellers are getting hammered with extra fees left and right so when I travel as a business speaker to out of town speaking engagements, I want to be able to control these costs.
I took a total of four different planes for the round trip between Buffalo and Columbia. All of these flights were the little commuter jets where they only have one flight attendant and two seats on either side (only one class of passenger seats). Even for non-obese passengers, it was quite tight for comfort and the gate agents even kept warning us of limited overhead space for carryon items.
They wanted us to do gate checks of larger carryon baggage if at all possible. Although they won’t charge us extra for this, it’s always a pain to wait for them at the destination airport as passengers have to wait around for somebody to bring any gate checked baggage to them.
Any first piece of checked baggage at the check in counters was subject to $20 each way for US Air. I knew this in advance since I checked with US Air prior to my trip. Since it was a quick single overnight trip, I used a briefcase that I had from my pharmaceutical sales days (click on link if interested in becoming a pharmaceutical sales rep) and stuffed both my business and personal things into it.
I was wearing my business suit that I intended to wear for my speaking engagement as this is always a good idea anyway just in case any checked baggage is lost or delayed. This way, I still have the right clothes for my talk.
Avoided Checked Baggage For No Extra Airline Fees
I put my business material as well as personal items like toiletries into this brief case. I also rolled up what I was going to wear to sleep and stuffed it into this same case. I decided to wear only a t-shirt and sweat pants in my hotel room. I also decided that if I was going to use the hotel gym, I’ll wear these as well and just hand wash them if I get too sweaty during my workout.
I saved extra weight by not bringing running shoes as I’ll opt to look stupid by wearing my business shoes in the gym. I don’t be running as I’ll be using a stationary bike which my business shoes will work just fine. At least I’ll really look like a business speaker when I’m in the hotel gym!
Then I took out my laptop that would have gone into this case and put it into another small case for it — this qualified as a personal carryon while my briefcase was my official carryon.
I was permitted to have one carryon piece as well as one personal carryon like a laptop or purse according to US Air. Both of my pieces were under the weight and size limit of carryon luggage.
So I was able to avoid the ridiculous airline baggage fees altogether and not have to wait for any checked luggage at my destination. I simply walked off the plane and right to parking lots or where the ground transportation was.
Of course, this took some planning and I had to learn to travel really light in response to all these fees that airlines want to tag us with. A business speaker or other type of frequent business traveller can end up paying hundreds of dollars in extra baggage fees if not careful over the course of a year.
If you are interested, check out my current business speaker programs available for your meeting.
How have you been affected by airline baggage fees and what have you done about them? Feel free to share below.
