You’ve seen the cage-like hand luggage measuring stations in airports, I’m sure. On occasion, you’ve probably been asked to test your carry-on in one of these boxes right before entering the jetway.

If your bag fits in the box, your carry-on is of approved size. If it’s too big, you either pay a fee or check the bag, depending on which airline you’re flying, and in which country.

Well, British discount airline (and bmi subsidiary) bmibaby has apparently been messing with their gauges. And (gasp!), the discrepancy in measurement is not in the passenger’s favor.

A leading budget airline may have unfairly charged thousands of passengers because its measuring devices for hand luggage were too small.

Customers of bmibaby were routinely asked at departure gates to put their hand luggage in a metal cage to ensure it met size restrictions.

Many failed the test and had to put the bags into the hold at a cost of £60 for a return flight.

Just delightful. The airline imposes the fee, then puts its thumb on the scale to ensure that it’s collecting some cash, even from those who are working within the rules to avoid the surcharge in the first place.

Even if we don’t assume malice, the airline has a responsibility to ensure that its scales and gauges are accurate.

If you’ve been charged an oversized-carry-on fee by bmibaby in the past, consider contesting the charges or demanding a refund. £60 isn’t chump change.

And maybe it’s time to start packing a tape measure.

For a limited time, InterContinental Hotels Group properties will reimburse some guests’ checked baggage fees. So a hotel chain — including InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Holiday Inn Club Vacations, Staybridge Suites, and Candlewood Suites — is indirectly subsidizing airlines. Interesting.

Beginning Aug. 16, when travellers book two consecutive weekend nights at any one of the 4,500 IHG hotels worldwide for stays between Sept. 1 and Dec. 30, 2010, their checked bag is free. Travellers can participate each and every weekend they stay with an IHG hotel during the “Check It Free” promotion period, when they pay for their hotel stay using their Visa® Card.
[...]
Download a rebate form via www.ihg.com/freebag and submit it with copies of your hotel receipt and baggage fee receipt for the same trip postmarked by Jan. 31, 2011.

Rebates are in the form of a prepaid Visa card, which carries monthly fees if you don’t exhaust it within six months.

The rebate has quite a few moving parts: 1) weekends only, 2) 2 night minimum, 3) Q4 only, 4) pay with Visa. Break any one of those rules, and say bye-bye to the rebate. Plus: 5) expiring-balance on the rebate itself.

Given those restrictions, this is potentially useful for weekend getaways. But for weekend getaways, won’t a carry-on suffice?…

So this ends up being great PR for IHG, but not necessarily something that will benefit the masses. That said, if you can map this out in advance, and you can make this work: Go for it!

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I know that checking bags stinks. I avoid it like the plague. Not only do you increasingly pay for the privilege, but the risk of the airline losing your bag is not to be ruled out. But UPS’ solution — their new luggage box — isn’t much help.

The company is touting it as the answer to runaway airline baggage fees, with the added bonus of direct-to-destination shipping. You take the packed box to a UPS Store, pay your fees, and off you go.

But that’s just it: you pay your fees. Hefty, heft fees.

For starters, you pay for the box itself. Granted, it’s intended to be reusable, so it’s perhaps a bit sturdier than your regular brown cardboard box. But it’s still a box. And it costs $12.95 for the small box or $17.95 for the larger one. And that’s if you can find it — not every UPS store has it, so you may need to order it from the company, and pay shipping.

Then there’s the cost to ship the box itself:

To ship the small size box at a maximum weight of 55 pounds between Los Angeles and New York on UPS’s ground network would cost about $66, including the price of the box, Rosenberg said. It would take about four days to get there. The large box would ship for about $92, she said. Delta currently charges $25 for one bag weighing less than 50 pounds that is checked in at the airport.

55 lbs. is frankly an odd amount to be using as a metric, since airlines in the US typically run up to 50 lbs. I guess that makes the UPS option look better?

In any case, paying $25 for a bag that travels with you, and that doesn’t take four days to get to its destination, starts to look pretty good. Sure, you have to carry the bag to the hotel or car. But is that worth $75 or so?

Pass me a tinfoil hat, but the UPS offering is so bad, it’s almost as if the airlines put them up to it, to make the airlines’ checked baggage fee look like a good deal.

Checked baggage fees are perhaps the most hated of the current round of fee hikes, but Delta has figured out a way to make the fees more palatable… for some. The airline’s marketing team has linked Delta Amex card membership with checked baggage fee waivers:

Starting June 1st, Cardmembers with a Gold, Platinum, or Reserve Delta SkyMiles Credit Card from American Express—and up to eight travel companions within their reservation—will automatically receive a first checked bag fee waiver upon check-in for all Delta and Delta Connection® flights.

This only applies to general members of the SkyMiles program, of course, since elite-level members are already waived out of paying the baggage fees — for two bags.

Assuming a single checked bag, checked both ways on a roundtrip, Delta Amex holders would save $50 per person on the itinerary. (Up to eight travel companions?! Big crowd. But that could work out to quite a savings.)

The cards charge annual fees — the gold, platinum, and reserve cards charge an $95, $150, or $450 (!) annual fee, respectively — but if you’re not an elite member of SkyMiles and you’re going to be traveling with Delta (and checking bags) anyway, it may be worth signing up for a card.

It had to happen, and it’s no surprise — at all — that it’s Spirit who’s doing it. The airline that started us down the path of fees-for-everything in the US is back, with a vengeance, charging for both checked baggage and now, carry-ons that go into the overhead bin.

Spirit Airlines will charge as much as $45 each way for a carry-on bag, adding a fee that bigger airlines have yet to try.

The charge will apply to bags in the overhead bin. Personal items that fit under the seat will still be free. Spirit said it will add measuring devices at the gates to determine which carry-ons are free and which ones will incur the charge.

The new charge is $45 if paid at the gate, and $30 if paid in advance, and begins Aug. 1. Spirit said today that it reduced its lowest fares by $40 on average, so most customers won’t really pay more to fly.

Spirit also charges to check luggage.

Nice spin re: reducing fares by $40 on average. This coming from an airline that often pitches $9 base fares with cutesy sale names.

Airfare comparison just got harder again. A fare on Spirit may now look cheaper than a fare on, say, JetBlue, despite the JetBlue fare including carry-ons and one checked bag. A “deal” may not be a deal once you add in all the fees.

As I’ve argued time and time again, there will be people upset with Spirit for doing this, but until people wise up and start voting with their feet (and wallets), this will continue.

(Thanks, Irv!)

Related:
- Spirit’s latest indignity: Middle seats for a $5 fee
- Spirit Airlines keeps it classy with their M.I.L.F. sale
- Spirit Airlines’ CEO flips his customers the bird
- Consumer victory: Spirit reverses its “web convenience fee”
- Is Spirit Airlines’ new club worth joining?

United Airlines has a short-term promo for those who want to ship their bags ahead, instead of checking them at the airport. Their “Door to Door Baggage” service, which transports your bags overnight via FedEx, normally costs $79 to $99 each way, but they’re cutting the price to $25.

From their press release (emphasis added):

For the low price of $25 per item each way, customers can send their bags, golf clubs and skis ahead to their final destination via FedEx standard overnight delivery.
[...]
Customers booked for travel between March 18 and March 29 within the continental United States on at least one United-operated or United-marketed flight are eligible. Sale prices are limited and available until 5 p.m. EDT on March 19 or while supplies last. Travelers may purchase the Door-to-Door Baggage option up to 10 days before departure.
[...]
A customer may ship up to nine bags at the limited $25 price, per bag. Weight, size and other restrictions apply.

Nine bags at that rate??! Wow. Cheap. If you’re moving cross-country, this deal is for you.

But… you have to reserve this by Friday the 19th. Which is a stupidly narrow window of opportunity if they really wanted people to take advantage. Needless to say, this won’t help a lot of people. But someone may benefit.