How do I avoid excess baggage charges?

Excess baggage is priced to punish, and the price rises the later you deal with it: cheapest when booked, more expensive added online later, and most expensive at the check-in desk or the gate. Nothing about that changes on the day, so the whole problem is solved at home with a set of scales.

What you'll need

• Bathroom scales or luggage scales
• Your airline's stated allowances

Step by step

1. Find your actual allowance for this booking.Not the airline's general policy — the allowance on your fare, which differs by ticket type and often between the outbound and return legs if they are different carriers. Check both.
2. Weigh each bag at home.Stand on bathroom scales, note your weight, then stand holding the bag and subtract. It is accurate to within a fraction of a kilogram, which is all you need.
3. Weigh the empty case first, once.Write it on a label inside the lid. Knowing the case is four kilos empty tells you what you actually have to play with, permanently.
4. Move weight to your person if you are close.Wear the boots and the coat, put books and chargers in coat pockets. Airlines weigh bags, not passengers. It is inelegant and it works.
5. Rebalance between bags rather than paying.Two bags of twenty kilos are usually fine where one of twenty-five is not, because the limit is normally per bag. Redistribute at home, not on the terminal floor.
6. Buy extra allowance online in advance if you genuinely need it.Added at booking is cheapest, added online later is more, and bought at the desk or gate is typically several times the online price. There is never a reason to leave it to the airport.
7. Check the cabin bag as carefully as the hold bag.Many carriers weigh cabin bags and some enforce it strictly at the gate, where the fee is at its highest and there is nowhere to move things to.
8. Leave a margin for the return.Bags come home heavier. Ten to fifteen per cent of spare weight going out is roughly what a normal amount of shopping and damp towels adds.
9. Post it instead if the excess is large.For a one-off heavy item, a courier or the postal service is often far cheaper than airline excess rates, and the item does not have to be carried.

Tips

• Sports equipment, musical instruments and pushchairs usually have their own rules and sometimes their own charges. Check them separately from the ordinary allowance.
• Handheld luggage scales are small, cheap and live in the case. They also work at the hotel for the return leg, where bathroom scales are not available.
• If your bag is a kilo over at the desk, ask before paying — some agents will let you move something into a cabin bag rather than charge you.

Common mistakes

• Leaving it until the check-in desk — Airport excess rates are typically several times the online price, charged per kilogram, and there is no negotiating position at that point.
• Assuming the return leg has the same allowance — Different carriers, different fares and codeshares frequently carry different allowances in each direction.

Questions people ask