The 50 lb Hassle

The memo must have gone out. American Airlines announced this week that they will soon start charging for every checked baggage. We bought our tickets before the announcement, so our 2-bag allowannce was grandfathered in, but the memo must have told the agents to start really enforcing the 50-lb limits.

Since three of us are traveling, we are allowed 6 bags. We checked in 5 bags, but two of the bags were overweight by 10 lbs. Two others were underweight by 10 lbs. In total, therefore, we were one bag and 50 lbs below our allowance, but the agent was unyielding. She asked us to redistribute the weight amongst the bags to make each them no more than 50 lbs. We chose to simply take 10 lbs out of the two offending bags, add it our carry on and check it in.

But it was a bit of a hassle to be doing this at the ticket counter. And since I moved the kids' coloring books and paraphrenilia to my backpack, that bag's awfully heavy.