virgin are insane with kiting gear, and all sporting equipment.... just stay clear of jetstar... you will end up paying more for your gear than your own ticket in my experiences.

I managed to get all my gear across to Perth with Jetstar but they really are tightwads. Thankfully i was travelling and checking in as a group so whilst i was ~5kg over (26kg total) they just absolved it into the rest of the check-in group.

I've never had a problem with Virgin though as they have the clause where sporting gear doesn't count towards luggage limit. I'm sure there's a limit but i've not found it yet.

Im travelling with QANTAS this afternoon from Brisbane to Darwin, and they said i can pay $22 for an extra bag, so now I can take two bags which can be up to 32kg each.

When i went to Adelaide earlier in the year, I took my wakeboard down (with Jetstar). But all I did was buy a large board bag as my primary piece of luggage and managed to fit everything into it. I bought the fuel club wakeboard cover from this page: http://www.waterskiersconnection.com.au/index.php?cPath=1_16_48&osCsid=6f82fdd5813a35dc1cd93cc134561087

I traveled about 20 times last year and about the same this year..... Now looking ONLY at weather you get charged for overwieht bags this is my 2c .......


Virgin pretty much NEVER worry about overweight bags .... Quantas SOMETIMES hit ya ..... But Jetstar are the pirates of the air mate. They hit me EVERY time .... not just sometime... but EVERY time my bag was overweight, and any time I tried to have a little haggle the check in person would ALWAYS get uptight. I assume it is Jetstar policy to always charge and make NO exceptions.

I guess at the end of the day they gotta make money .... but when you compare apples with apples Jetstar just DONT RATE AT ALL.

Ahhhhhhhhhh ........... they get a cut !

If they do .... that would explain the reactions/responses I was getting from the checkout staff. On a number of occasions they hit me $30 - $50 bucks in excess. Just last week I saw a girl @ cairns airport given the option of unloading things from her cargo luggage and putting them in her carry on luggage to reduce (she still had to pay excess on the cargo bag) her excess or leave it as is and pay full excess .... she unloaded !

But what sort of a crap option is that anyway ? For one you gotta unpack your stuff in front of everyone waiting 2. You piss everyone off who is waiting in line 3. You slow the line down ....... and the plane is still carying the SAME weight. Maybe there is something to do with ballast weight vs cabin weight ?????

But whatever the case ...... seems Jetstar wont be seeing too many kiters in the near future

I am impressed

My trick is to give the boss the recipt

Sports equipment counts as part of your free baggage allowance. Each item individually represents 5kgs of your free total baggage allowance, regardless of the actual weight of the item.

For example, a bike that weighs 10kg will represent 5kg of your free baggage allowance. If your allowance is 20kg, you will have 15kg left for other items.

So does that mean if I pack my kite, board, harness into one of those specially made kiteboard bags and it weighs close to 20kg it will only be counted as 5kg? Sounds too good to be true? Any past experiences with Virgin Blue to confirm?cheers

This is direct from the virgin website, under sporting goods baggage,

Sports Equipment
Sports equipment counts as part of your free baggage allowance. Each item individually represents 5kgs of your free total baggage allowance, regardless of the actual weight of the item.

For example, a bike that weighs 10kg will represent 5kg of your free baggage allowance. If your allowance is 20kg, you will have 15kg left for other items. These items include but are not restricted to:


Bikes
Golf clubs
Snow skis
Surfboards
Cricket/tennis bags

Gotta love virgin blue, xxx angie