If you needed another reason to pack light on your Caribbean vacation, here’s a good one: On some routes, Air Jamaica will accept multiple checked bags, but will only deliver one bag on the flight you’re actually traveling on. The other bag, who knows? All this for the low, low price of $25! Huh?? Seriously.
On Monday, Air Jamaica started charging passengers $25 for the second checked bag on flights from New York to Grenada and Barbados, but the second checked bag won’t be on their flight.
Air Jamaica will transport the first checked bag on passengers’ flights, at no charge. All other bags will be transported within seven days and must be picked up at the airport, Air Jamaica said.
When will your second bag arrive? No promises, but you can check their website to see when the bag will be available for you to pick up. How very convenient…
While many airlines have restrictions on the number of bags they will accept during specific times of the year, often to/from Caribbean or Latin American airports, their restrictions impose a hard limit on the number of bags. The reason: At certain times of year, residents of those countries fly to/from the United States to visit friends and relatives, with large quantities of merchandise in tow. If all the bags and cargo were loaded, the plane would be overweight.
But Air Jamaica isn’t doing it that way. Rather, they’re accepting the bag, charging a fee, and then offering you the equivalent of a lottery ticket that your might see your bags eventually during your trip.
And a one week window for delivery? Your vacation might be over by the time your bags arrive. To charge a fee and not even have a sense of when your bags might arrive is chutzpah.
RSS (FeedBurner)
Read with Amazon Kindle
Subscribe by E-mail
Follow on Twitter
December 31st, 1969 at 11:59 pm
@SouthwestAir Your lack of second baggage fees looks better all the time… have you seen this? http://tinyurl.com/qkhpf9 Unbelievable!
May 14th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Relax, mon.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
The non-commitment policy opens the door to corruption: for extra $$ tip you can ensure that your bag does arrive. My bet is that they’ll reverse this soon to something of the effect of two sets of fees: guaranteed delivery date and vague promise.
25$ sounds still cheaper than the postal service
May 15th, 2009 at 12:11 am
Well there is one airline I won’t be taking (not that I had any intention of taking some 3rd rate carrier).
May 15th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Learning to pack light is one the best skills a traveler can own. It get’s easier over time, and with the way airlines are now gouging passengers, it’s a skill many will be forced to acquire.
May 15th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Nice pic of Air Jamaica from the 70’s! I agree with styleosophy – we all need to travel light. To ‘From the Mind of J’ – I respectfully disagree that Air Jamaica is a 3rd rate carrier. They were known for serving hot meals in coach and offering (bad) champagne to all pax.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Air Koryo serves hot meals to this day…
May 16th, 2009 at 4:52 am
For that type of passenger (bringing back lots of goodies from the states or wherever back home to the west indies) – well, the gifts just arrive a week later, and they do stay on in Jamaica, all the ‘food processor for grandma, toys and hershey bars for the kids, etc stuff) arent taken back to the states.
May 17th, 2009 at 2:27 am
This creates another issue, I know with Continental, if you are carrying excess baggage, overweight baggage, over sized baggage or boxes, these items are carried on a space available basis even if paying the excess baggage fees.