Sending excess baggage as cargo

About 6 weeks ago, I left my flat in Hong Kong and flew back to the UK. I packed some stuff into a storage locker over there and brought the rest back with me, meaning I had two suitcase-sized bags, mainly full of clothes, and a hold-all style bag with things like electrical bits, shoes, books, etc. in it. In total, my baggage weight came to somewhat over 40kg (nearer 45kg, IIRC), well over both the PE (which I was booked in) baggage allowance of 23kg and the UC (which I upgraded to with miles) allowance of 30kg, but the friendly gentleman who checked me in at the in-town check-in at Hong Kong told me he'd let me through without charging, which was very very nice of him.

As I understand it, the charge is £37/kg, meaning I was probably due to pay going on for £500 on the way back to London.

Tomorrow - today - 5/10 - I'm flying back to Hong Kong, with at least as much luggage, probably slightly more. I've been calling daily and it looks like UC is completely full, so this may end up being my first non-UC flight since February last year. I consider my freebie coming out of Hong Kong to be a nice bonus, but there's enough money involved that I can't rely on getting an upgrade and on the staff choosing (surely there are rules here?) not to charge me.

I mentioned this to the FC people on Tuesday, who suggested that rather than pay excess baggage charges, I could send the bags as cargo, on the same plane, picking them up at the cargo terminal in HK. I spoke to Virgin cargo, who confirmed that it was possible and should be a lot cheaper than paying the excess baggage fee, so I booked myself in, took two bags down today (Wednesday), total charge £186 for 32kg of bags, with a few $ to be paid at the other end for admin. It does mean it'll take me longer to get my bags and get out of the airport at the other end, but frankly, it's a nice airport, I'm normally though so quickly that even adding an hour or two might make it compare with a UK or US airport, and for the sake of (potentially) up to about £1000 saved, I think it's worth it.

Anyone done this? Is it sane? Is it a new idea (fat chance!) or does everyone else know to do this? Apart from the fact that I've checked it in early, and I'll have to do some extra work collecting it, it should be pretty much the same as sending it as baggage, but much cheaper - so what's in it for Virgin?

[Decker]

We've looked at doing it before now when going to conference and needing to carry stand gear. As long as cargo rates exist it is just good Customer Service for VS to let you know about them. Imagine how you'd react if someone else told you about the possibility after the event .

[fozzyo]

I've thought about using this before now when I've wanted to purchase particularly big / heavy things in the US. When the cargo / courier charge, with taxes and duty charges still works out as a saving compared to buying in the UK it seems a sensible thing to do to me.

Mat

There are quite a few companies that will send unaccompanied luggage for you these days... I've used First Luggage for my Gran to fly to Australia.. they collected the luggage from her home, and delivered it to the hotel in Oz where I met her... Gran was able to fly without luggage and the stress and the hotel (Shangri-la) had even unpacked the bags before we checked in!

[Bazz]

Ben, when I first read that I thought you had send your Gran as cargo

In theory... cargo often gets treated a little better than baggage, so any fragile items you may have had probably would be better suited traveling as cargo, not to mention you would maybe even have a better chance of it getting there. I don't know what VS' policies are, I know that DL DASH is guaranteed to be on the flights it was booked on, or there's some kind of "we're sorry we screwed up" compensation at the other end.

It's great that VS gave you this option. There are a lot of American carriers that won't let you do that because of security procedure. For example, you cannot ship with DL Cargo unless:

You're a known shipper (which involves an application with DL, and even used to involve a DL rep coming to your place of business to verify your business).

You're an IAC (Indirect Air Carrier), a company that packages cargo in compliance with TSA regulations.

Your package weighs less than 16 ounces. In this case you can ship even if you don't meet the two previous criteria.

Even if you meet the requirements to ship, you're still subject to our dangerous goods handling procedures and a couple other little rules.

Basically, it's quite near impossible for someone to be able to ship their excess baggage with us.