Virgin America and Baggage!

To my knowledge and history of flying in the my country (USA) recently, Virgin America are the only airline not to charge for:

A) checked baggage

B) overweight baggage

I have never been to charged anything for checked baggage or overweight with VA.

Most if not all the other airlines in the states charge for both. Recently i flew from Steamboat Springs to Denver with United, my checked baggage was overweight and i was charged $125!! Flying with American, overweight charge was $50!

I made a flight with frontier airlines recently from LAX to Denver knowing full well my checked baggage was over and on checking in at the kiosk the baggage handler came over and I said to him

'I know my bag is overweight, I will need to pay some more', to which they replied:

'Don't worry about it, just hand it over and I'll deal with it'.

My bag didn't even reach the scales and before you can say bobs your, it was on the conveyor belt on its way to the aircraft. No charge, nothing.

On checking Frontier Airlines' baggage policy, overweight charge (over 50lb) is $75.

Ok, so I got lucky with that flight; how long can Virgin America carry on with their freebie? and anybody else had any discrepancies with their baggage in the US?

[Decker]

Moved to appropriate forum...

The VX allowance is pretty generous (70lb) for the first bag. We travelled with them in August and had no problems (as we were in First we also had a second free bag up to 50lb each).I personally hope they don't start charging for bags.
Discrepancies in the US? Back in November NW waived our bag fees from MCO- MEM (because we were ' UK visitors')and AA waived the fees between BNA-MIA because we were flying back to the UK with them (it wasn't a connecting flight as we had 3 days in MIA).No complaints from me on either score.

I really do think its down to the attitude of the passenger.

I've been over by a couple of KG on a couple of occassions and a 'oh am I? I didn't realise' often goes down a treat along with profuse thanks over not being charged as opppsed to ...

A few years ago I was at Travelex at LGW collecting my currency when two less than delightful young ladies barged to the front of the queue spouting off about having to pay excess baggage and how awful it was and how VS were ******* ****** ******* making them pay etc.

I just thought if that's how you acted at check-in no wonder they wanted to charge you. Ironic thing is they said they were going to the USA to do some shopping so how on earth were they going to manage on the return trip if they had exces baggage in the way out !

(Was it wrong to mention to my travelling companions later that I hoped that VS sat them at the back of the plane next to the toilets?)

The party's over, I'm afraid:

'Virgin America to charge $15 for first checked bag'
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/03/19/financial/f080627D96.DTL

I love VX so much over every other domestic carrier that I actually don't mind. And I usually get away with cabin baggage on domestics anyway, thankfully.

[Scrooge]

And I guess the OP has never heard of Southwest ?

[buns]

Given the circumstances, I suppose it was inevitable[:#]


Here is the link to the Virgin America web page.

buns

[Darren Wheeler]

This page explains it in a bit more detail. If you booked before March 19, Main Cabin pax still can check one piece upto 70 pounds free of charge.

At least it's only $15.