next time, take the train. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/c/a/2009/07/05/TREV18975L= .DTL --------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, July 5, 2009 (SF Chronicle) Beware of European airlines' cheap fares Lisa Howard Before we moved to London from California, my husband and I heard about the amazing deals you can get on low-cost European airlines. Cheap flights. Very cheap flights. "We flew to Madrid for 25 euros round trip. Seriously, 25 euros!" The Europeans gleefully putting out this information were inevitably smu= g, as if this was yet One More Fantastic Thing European countries have going for them (see also: universal health care, good public transportation, better social services). And there are some amazing deals on airfares in Europe. But the savings - or lack of such - are in the fine print. Or more specifically, the luggage. Low-cost airlines such as Ryanair and Bmibaby charge for every checked bag; the price varies between 10 to 20 euros each ($13.84 to $27.68) depending on the number of bags and whether you check them online. But paying to check a suitcase is just the beginning. The real expense comes with the weight of the suitcase. The magic limit for Ryanair is about 33 pounds. EasyJet is a bit more generous at 44 pounds, and Bmibaby allows 40 pounds. It's not difficult to stay within the allotted limit if you are jaunting off for, say, a weekend in Rome, but many U.S. visitors arrive in Europe via long-haul flights that generously allow each passenger two bags weighing up to 50 pounds each, with even heftier allowances if you are flying business class. Of course, you can try to carry on as much as possible, but on Ryanair, passengers are allowed only one carry-on bag, and it can't weigh more than 22 pounds and can't be any bigger than 21 inches by 15 inches by 8 inches, and so on. All of these weight restrictions and size details are just boring old fi= ne print buried somewhere deep on the Web site until you are at the airport checking in. And you are informed that your luggage is overweight. Then, as you reluctantly hand over your credit card so your baggage can actually travel with you (always at a separate counter and there's always a line), you realize with stinging clarity one way these "low-cost" airlines make money: by extracting brutal weight-overage fees from unknowing travelers like you. Our first introduction to low-cost flying was from Marseille to London. = My husband and I were traveling with our long-haul suitcases. They were big, heavy and free of charge from California to Europe. Flying EasyJet from Marseille to London, though, our bags were snidely treated like behemoths and cost hundreds of additional euros in excess baggage fees, making our low-cost flight as expensive as if we had booked business class on a major airline. EasyJet's overage charges are 12 euros per kilogram. Ryanair is slightly more punitive, extracting 15 euros per kilogram for excess baggage fees, which (at $1.39 per euro) works out to about $9.48 per pound or 59 cents an ounce. So if you are traveling on Ryanair with a 50-pound suitcase, your overage will cost you about $160 each way in excess baggage fees. And if you are traveling with two long-haul 50-pounders, your overage will cost you a whopping $631 in excess baggage fees - each way. Which is to say, as always, it's fiscally worthwhile to read the boring fine print. And maybe invest in one of those hand-held luggage scales if you are going the low-cost airline route. Even so, my husband and I still sometimes run into problems. Coming back to London from a trip to Ireland where we had met up with friends from San Francisco, our luggage had somehow gained weight. Luckily, I had a nylon grocery bag in my purse. In the middle of the crowded Dublin Airport, I unzipped our suitcase and proceeded to stuff the bag full of dirty clothes, dieting our luggage down to the requisite weight for the short 288-mile flight. On the plus side, we didn't pay any extra charges; on the down side, I had a shopping bag of dirty laundry as carry-on luggage. When we got to the gate, we learned that our friends, traveling with the suitcases they brought from San Francisco, had been thoroughly whacked by excess weight charges. They had the dazed expression of vacationers whose budget has been unceremoniously hijacked. Valerie, a nurse practitioner prone to remaining preternaturally calm, was philosophical, saying it wasn't worth getting upset about. As we waited for our flight to London, she did murmur, though, that if she'd known how bad it was going to be she probably would have eaten the buttons off all her clothes. And, at almost 60 cents an ounce, this actually would have saved them so= me money. E-mail comments to travel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx --------------------------------= -------------------------------------- Copyright 2009 SF Chronicle <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> If you wish to unsubscribe from the AIRLINE List, please send an E-mail to: "listserv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx". Within the body of the text, only write the following:"SIGNOFF AIRLINE".