A United Luggage Strategy

WOOD GREEN, LONDON
Beth: “But if one of our pieces is over weight then they may weigh each and every piece of our hand luggage.  And we know that Abby’s backpack stuffed with text books is way over the 10 kg limit. Remember, that’s what happened to Lily and me in Montreal.”

On Christmas in Madrid - The tree is packed but will be jetisoned if necessary

It’s breakfasttime on the morning of our flight back to San Francisco from London and we are working on our luggage weigh-in strategy.

Abby raises another complication: “We need to let one of us do the talking with the agent to make sure we don’t contradict each other.  We don’t want to make a mess and have them force us to fly on to Monterey.”  When I purchased our tickets nine months ago I saved $400 by buying return tickets with a routing London-SFO-Monterey, California.  At the time I was certain we could just leave the airport in SFO and skip the final leg.  But I had never received firm confirmation of this and the uncertainty was weighing on us.  Should we ask if we can get off in SFO or just do it…running the risk of an unexpected problem in SFO after 11 hours in the air and possibly having to arrange last minute ground transport home from Monterey?

Beth and I had already discussed the weight problem several times in the last 24 hours and had agreed on this final summit meeting to effectively synchronize our strategy.  Beth had her notebook out.  First, we had agreed preemptively to pay the 31 GB Pounds for an extra bag.  This bought us an additional 23 kg (50 pounds).  Even so, without a scale, and with unpleasant experiences on Beth and Lily’s flight over and our intra-Europe EasyJet (see previous blog) flights fresh in our minds, we worried that one or more of the five big bags we had spread out across the living room would be overweight.  


Lily exclaims: “That’s 250 pounds of checked luggage!”  We all feel sheepish.  “It has been four months...  We have bought a few presents…  Books for teaching and airplane reading are heavy…”  What can we say?

The discussion continues.  The croissants are eaten.  The coffee and tea are nearly gone.

With our luggage, ready to walk to our Tube Station

Beth referring to her notes: “In summary, we’ll hope for scenario A: all of our bags are less than 23 kg and we check in without a hitch.” 

She continues: “If we face scenario B -- one or more bags are over and the agent is going to charge us, we will jot down the weight of each bag, take them off to the side to let others check in, and on the floor of the hall reallocate dense items in the offending bags to the lighter bags.”


Peter: “Everyone needs to know where the heaviest items in your checked luggage are.”


Abby:  “The bag of presents for my friends is dense – pure chocolate.  I can grab them out easily.”

Beth moves on to scenario C – our worst case: Bags are overweight and the agent insists on weighing all 13 bags (2 each carry-ons plus the five to be checked).  “In this case we’ll check my roll-on bag which is already heavy with books and pay a second extra-bag fee.  In that case everyone move some heavy carry-on items into my roll-on and I’ll take lighter stuff in an extra carry-on shoulder bag.”

After a few more refinements we are clear.  Next we agree I should do the talking with the agent.  However, Lily insists, “But we shouldn’t be hard on them.”  I get defensive, “If I’m going to do the talking, I’ll do it my way.  I always try to steer between firmly defending our needs against arbitrary rule enforcement and being obnoxious.  I’m never mean or obnoxious.  The staff is just trying to do their job by following their rules.”  My family doesn’t look reassured.  But they allow me to hold onto my role as spokesperson.

Now it is time to revisit the Monterey problem.  Beth puts her foot down: “You need to say what we agreed-on yesterday.  Just tell them we want to get off in San Francisco.  Don’t get fancy.”  I withdraw my fancier proposal to start with an oblique confirmation of where we will be processed through US Customs.

The meeting adjourns.

Two hours later we reach the head of the United Airlines line at Heathrow Terminal 1.  Our agent is a middle aged black man with a Caribbean accent.  We nonchalantly approach the counter with our thirteen pieces of luggage.  I smile and hand him our passports and internet-printed boarding passes.  As agreed, Abby and Lily subtly stack our carry-on items in a neat scrum away from the counter and position themselves to screen them from the agent's view. While he processes our paperwork I slyly place each of our five bulbous pieces of luggage on the scale:  Beth’s weighs in at 22.5 kg.  The girls give each other a discrete knuckle tap.  My bag is 20.5, a light-weight.  The girl’s are the same. And our extra bag full of books and paperwork weighs only 16 kg.  Scenario A, here we come.

Feeling a surge in confidence I broach the subject of Monterey.  “Is this the last flight on your itinerary?” he asks.  “Yes.”  “Then no problem.”  I notice another knuckle-tap by our hand luggage screeners.  He prints luggage tags only to SFO.  We are golden.

With a mixture of triumph and relief we proceed through immigration.  Beth reflects, “My bag was the heaviest!”


Peter