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Hi all, was wondering if this had happened to anyone else.

 

i spent a couple of weeks in niseko and when it came time to fly home the good people at narita airport decided to slug me and my mate 16,700 yen each for our snowboards, as excess baggage fees. and that was the flat rate, discounted sports equipment fee, or so they told me.

 

it was a qantas flight, and we tried explaing to them it was sports equipment so shouldnt be counted towards our baggage allowance, but they would have none of that, and after being passed onto several different people and getting rather pissed off, got to the point of having to board the plane and them saying either give us the money now or leave your boards here.

 

was very confusing seeing we didnt have any problem at all taking our board bags on the JL flights from haneda to Sapporo and back, yet get hit by this huge fee for the qantas flight home.

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Dude,

 

I think your board can be carried as part of your 20kg allowance. I think from memory you are allowed 2 bags + sports equipment + laptop so long as the sum of all of them don't exceed 20kg. On top of that is your carry on (which might have a max of 5kg or so). If you fly business you get more + more leeway.

 

Did you have 20kg of baggage + your snowboard? If you did the charge seems about right.

 

Matt

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i did have another bag so my total was over 20kg, however my gripe is i have never been charged for sporting equipment before. qantas doesnt charge for sports equipment, it is not part of your luggage allowance. the the domestic flights on JL didnt have a problem with it either, only when leaving narita. it is this inconsistency that bugs me, i wasnt charged when coming to japan, and nothing had changed when i was leaving.

 

im just interested to know if this is a standard fee by the airport i was ignorant of? or have i been ripped off?

 

cheers.

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towers, I think you've n\been really leniently treated before, not dudded this time.

 

As I read the luggage allowances, they allow you 20kg checked plus around 7kg cabin (with some size restrictions that I have never seen enforced). Sporting gear is usually discounted when the calculation is being done, but it still counts towards the total.

 

If you've never been charged before, then you were either very very lucky OR you had just about 20kg and the difference wasn't sufficient for them to enforce the rules. Seems that, this time you struck a very officious person at check-in, and/or were running late for check-in and they were already heavy, and/or you had well over 20kg total.

 

Whichever, they were well within their rights.

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The allowances and airport 'handling fees' are completely different for international and domestic flights in Japan. I've taken domestic flights with 3 surfboards (one of them a 9'6"!!) plus baggage and no one batted an eye. Of course, I didn't just show up at airport with all my gear but had called ahead to make sure that that specific flight would allow me to check all that luggage.

I don't know the specifics of your situation but I highly doubt that you were ripped off. Make sure to call ahead next time and save yourself some frustration!

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The thing that annoys me with these weight limitations is just how inconsistent they are with it all. I remember once I was literally weighed down with near on 40kg in total. Got through no problem. Then once I was asked to pay for being 3kg over. I suppose they are now being stricter with costs and all...

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Last year I had to pay £240 for being 6kg over the weoght allowance!! The thing that really annoyed me about this is even though i was at fault for being over the weight limit the plane wws literally a 3rd full!!! We could have had a football match on the 747-400 given how empty it was.

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Few years back I was doing quite a bit of flying with skiis and in most every case the airline tried to charge extra for the boot bag. Yet on their web page it clearly stated that skiis + boot bag = 1 piece of check in luggage. Started to carry a copy of their policy which made things a bit smoother since in most cases I don't think the airline staff is aware of their own policy, especially if your departure point isn't a ski town. Flying out of Jackson Hole was one of the few times there were no problems as everyone was checking in skiis and boards.

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Originally Posted By: towersofdub
Hi all, was wondering if this had happened to anyone else.



Yes.
I got hit last year.
It cost us about 500 Aussie Dollars if I recall correctly...
We had about the same weight flying IN as OUT, maye 1 or 2 kilo more. No problem going but at Narita forget it. We argued the point with them explaining that Qantas flew us here with these weights no problem ....thier stand was this is Qantas TOKYO! NARITA is different rules you pay or you stay here, end of story. We paid.

Since then we got Qantas Club to hopefully avoid silly limits in future.
Sorry you got caught too.
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Ouch, that's harsh.

 

We're flying Aberdeen-London-Helsinki-Toky with BA who allow you to take a board bag on in addition to your allowance at no extra cost. However, they do a code share with Finair (Helsinki-Tokyo leg) who charge you 30 euros for your board bag! BA will have checked us right through to Tokyo, so we'll probably get away with the charge on our way out, not sure what will happen on our way back though!! Sounds like you guys have had a nightmare!

 

I think I'll print off BA & Finair's baggage allowances to save any problems!!

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yeah,,it's really annoying with all the various standars etc..

e.g i've flown all over the world with my ski's and on 90% of the time it's fine, counts as sports equipment etc..

some good airlines from my experience:

-Air Canada : two pair of ski's, boots, mountaineering gear(ropes,crampoons etc)..total of mroe than 30kg just sports equipment was just fine razz

-Austrian Airlines/Swiss/Lufthansa : Ski equipment is fine, other sports equipment max 15kg i think? never had problems

-Thai: there is a max on volume kg..never had problems though

-SAS: ski equipment no problems, other equipment counted towards total

-Finnair: no problems

-Cathay pacific: also no problems with them

 

following i have had trouble with:

-Air New Zealand: sports equipment can be up to 10kg...even when my flight was booked with austrian who allow free set of ski's they charged me all the way from auckland to stockholm..austrian flew me fromt tokyo to sthlm..luckily I got that part of the charge back from austrian..but next time i'm soo gonna tell them at the counter they can stuff it and will put on my skiboots,helmet and backprotector and tell them they are just stupid razz apart from that air nz is one of the best carriers!!

- BA: had to really bring a copy of the allowance before they were ok with some stuff

-Quantas: well, actually I havent had any trouble with them even with lots of sport equipment..but ive only flown continental withing NZ with them..but my gf had some trouble with all her climbing gear last time she went home..had about 15kg extra climbing gear from wellington-sidney-singapor..quantas flew welli-sidney and wanted to cahrge her..but I talked to the clerk and showed em my frequent flier card and he talked to a manager etc..

 

So, I recommend checking beforehand, have a copy of allowance printout and be a member in both a star alliance club and one world..to cover both alliances razz

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I hope you saved your receipt for the surcharge so you can file a complaint with Qantas!

 

Like Mamabear says, it sounds like an issue with the people at the Qantas counter at Narita. This isn't an issue with Narita airport in general (I usually fly into Narita aboard either JAL or Air Canada and never get hit with a charge inbound or outbound).

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Originally Posted By: Mamabear

thier stand was this is Qantas TOKYO! NARITA is different rules you pay or you stay here, end of story. We paid.


yes this is what i got aswell, they really have you over a barrel, no-one is going to leave their gear behind.

i did keep the receipt and will be taking it up with qantas, although im not holding my breath.

thanks for the replies peoples thumbsup
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yeah,def get in touch with quantas and don't back down..the allowance on their webpage is valid everywhere they fly to,this is true for all airlines..it's not up to the airport to set individual rules.

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Quote:
it's not up to the airport to set individual rules


Are you sure about that?

The UK did have some very strict rules (may be still have them) regarding number of bags. Only 1 to be taken on. That was regardless of airline.
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that had to do with hand luggage for security reasons (stupid terrorist yeah whateva)..hand luggage is slightly diff from checked in..as you can access hand luggage during flight,but not checked in stuff razz

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Originally Posted By: DJElo
yeah,def get in touch with quantas and don't back down..the allowance on their webpage is valid everywhere they fly to,this is true for all airlines..it's not up to the airport to set individual rules.


I dont think Qantas is wrong. I think its just that they don't often enforce their policy. I cant see anything to complain about. The guy got a good deal the first way, and got the standard (and the japanese follow guidelines) treatment coming home.

Last time I flew out of Narita I got on like a snowman. I was wearing all my clothes, hiking boots, MTB armour etc. All that was in my checked luggage were MTB parts. I just had a rubbish bag in my pocket and when I got on just took everything off and threw it in that. I probably had 10-15kg of stuff in the bag.
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I have managed to get a further 10kg on top of the 20kg allowance approved by JAL for our flights into and out of Japan - much happier now! Just had to phone them and give them the dimensions of all our check-in luggage and individual bad weights and they were happy to approve the extra weight.

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QANTAS - happened to us at Narita too in 2007.

30,000JPY (2x 3kg allowance)was about $50 kg then.

JAL - also got the additional luggage allowance on JAL in 2008 - TA had no problem in arranging this (32kg each).

Tip for 2009 - luggage weighs in about 6kg per empty bag, only take one bag between two at the most - pack as much in the wheelie board bags as needed to keep total weight in limit.

Otherwise travel light and just take the wheelie bag.

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