checked bag fees

Tag Archives for checked bag fees.

Airlines Blame High Fuel Costs For Bag Fee Hikes — But Shouldn’t Promise To Cut Them When Costs Fall

Apr 09 2026

Airlines keep pointing to higher fuel costs when they raise bag fees, and that is rhetorically powerful because passengers understandably expect lower costs to mean lower prices. But that is not how airline pricing really works: fees are one tool carriers use to manage total revenue, and they have no reason to promise those fees will fall just because one input cost does.

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United Raises Checked Bag Fees To $50 — Congress Rewards Airlines For Shifting Fares Into Untaxed Fees

Apr 02 2026

United is raising checked bag fees to $50 for new tickets, another $10 increase that follows JetBlue’s latest move and will likely be copied across the industry. What makes this worse than a normal fare hike is that bag fees are largely exempt from the 7.5% federal excise tax on domestic tickets, so airlines have every incentive to move more of the price into fees instead of fares.

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Passenger Ate A Dozen Bananas At LAX Check-In — To Beat An Overweight Bag Fee

Apr 02 2026

One passenger at LAX check-in was so determined to avoid an overweight bag fee that he stood there and ate a dozen bananas out of his own luggage to get the suitcase under the limit. The stunt is ridiculous, but it also captures something real about modern air travel: checked bag fees are now so aggressive — and overweight penalties so steep — that travelers will reshuffle, rewear, and apparently even binge-eat their way out of paying them.

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Passengers Are Using A Deceptive Trick To Beat Airport Bag Scales — And Avoid Overweight Fees

Dec 16 2025

Airlines enforce the 50-pound limit with baggage scales that aren’t always perfectly calibrated—so some passengers have started “helping” the reading by quietly supporting one side of the suitcase with a foot while it’s being weighed. The number drops because part of the bag’s weight transfers off the scale, and influencers even promote it as a tip. It’s also fraud, and agents say they see (and cringe at) it all the time.

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Tuesday Is The Day Southwest Airlines Gives Up: Bag Fees Start—But They Were Embarrassed To Say The Price

May 27 2025

The end of Southwest Airlines as a brand is Tuesday, May 28th. They begin charging for checked bags on all tickets sold beginning tomorrow. What’s amazing is that they refused to even tell customers what they’d be charging. They were too embarrassed – having built their entire reputation on being a customer-friendly airline, with ‘bags fly free’ as the centerpiece.

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