Lawrence "The Dreamer" Chen's Blog

Today, US Airways announced a change to our baggage policy. Beginning
May 5, 2008, we'll charge $25 for a second checked bag. The new fee
applies to travel on or after May 5 for tickets purchased on or after
February 26, 2008.

Dividend Miles Preferred members (and anyone traveling on the same
reservation) are exempt from the fee. We're also waiving the fee for:

Confirmed First Class and Envoy passengers
Passengers with Star Alliance Silver or Gold status
Active military personnel in uniform and with ID
Unaccompanied minors
Passengers checking personal assistive devices
We're making these changes to offset record fuel prices and rising
airline related expenses. We simply must make changes to the way we
do business to provide the high level of service that our passengers
have come to expect from US Airways. Also, we're doing all we can to
keep fares low. With this policy change, we're able to give travelers
the choice to avoid the fee and pack fewer items. With fewer bags to
process, we save both money and fuel and can pass that savings on to
our customers.

High level of service....this would be the airline that bumped me to a later flight, making sit at an airport for 12 hours...and then canceled the flight. Announced that all the flights for the next two days were full and claimed that they were canceling due to weather so they wouldn't put us up. Said they would request a refund for me...but I never got my refund.

But a few people got rental cars and we carpooled to our destination and the weather was fine all the way. Of course, they had mechanical trouble on the corresponding outbound flight making me miss my connection, to which they gave away my reservation on the return (non-stop) star alliance partner flight (even though they had told me on the phone they wouldn't)...and added a couple of extra stops to my itinerary to get there and back. Fortunately I was trying to get in two days before a wedding, instead of what ended up being the night before.

Later when I was talking to Air Canada (a star alliance partner), they told me that I shouldn't have booked my flight with US Airways....then I would've been treated better. Guess I didn't think of it, given that my city is only served by US Airways.... though they couldn't recover the non-stop return flight that I was original scheduled to be on, though they couldn't think of any reason why US Airways had taken me off of it in the process of trying to find me a new outbound flight. And I had paid extra to get that non-stop flight.... Also the non-stop return flight was an afternoon flight, they had rebooked me into a multi-stop (very) early am flight.

Oh well, I haven't flown US Airways since, and I'm thinking that I will work with an agent (rather than booking online) so that I can come up with a workable plan to get me to and from the cruise terminal that won't involve US Airways. (something that meshes with KCIRoadRunner's schedule from here to MCI)

But, I'm planning to spend my stimulus check on a cruise now.

Though I think the only times I've flown with two bags (other than an overseas trip ~30 years ago) has been 1-way's where I was relocating. Though there have been a few times that I've been dinged for an overweight bag. It was particular bad when I did my Alaskan cruise (Sun Princess)...it started from Vancouver, so I was well under the 75lb weight limit....but coming back from Anchorage I was over the the 50lb limit. I guess if I could get a do over....I should've gone the other way. Though don't know if I would've had the same good time that I had....