Qantas Baggage Allowance - Golf Clubs

[flyerire]

Hi there,
i recently flew return to Australia ex. Dublin. I had one item of hand luggage, a 20kg gear bag and a 10kg golf bag. My flight was booked as a BA flight but inolved carriage on a number of different airlines as is usual on these types of flights. The first leg of the trip was from dub-lhr-nrt. I checked my bags in at Dublin as far as nrt with no excess baggage charge. I spent one night in Narita and then checked in for a Qantas flight fron Nrt-Syd whereupon i was charged roughly 200 euro in excess baggage!! After about half an hour of argueing i reluctantly paid it and just put it down to some incompetent staff member in Tokyo. However after researching the Qantas bagage allowance carefully i came to the conclusion that their limit is only 20 kg with no allowance for a set of golf clubs like many other airlines. On the way home i flew Qantas again from Mel-Sin, Emirates from Sin- Bkk and British Airways from Bkk - Lhr with the exact same baggage if not slighly heavier and never once was excess baggage ever mentioned!!
My questions are,

1. Was it a mistake by a handling agent in Tokyo or was i just very lucky on the other 4 flights??

2. Did the fact that on the way home, i was a member of the qantas frequent flyer club make any difference??

Looking forward to getting some advice,

J

[bealine]

Although you say you bought your ticket from BA, you don't say whether or not you bought your ticket as a "BA Codeshare" (ie were the flights sold with BA Flight Numbers or QF numbers?)

Mind you, that is partly irrelevant as all your flights were with "One World" partner airlines. If you booked all your flights on one booking, the terms and conditions of "One World" allow the greatest baggage allowance of one sector to be enjoyed throughout the itinerary!

Therefore, if your British Airways sectors allow 23 kg PLUS one item of sporting equipment (ie golf bag) then that is the allowance throughout - end of story!

Once again - as long as you are travelling on ONE booking! The Emirates (non-One World) part of the booking leads me to suspect you might have been travelling on separate PNR's (which can work out a bit cheaper) in which case Qantas have been within their rights to charge!

If you did travel on one PNR, and you booked it with Brritish Airways, e-mail [email protected] with the full details. They are notoriously slow at responding, (their tardiness is legendary, due to their being permanently short of staff) but ultimately they will look into your case.

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[flyerire]

Thanks for your reply.....actually i forget to add another flight i took with Cathay pacific, a one world airline too. The Emirates flight was merely a personal add on to my original ticket to allow me an extra stop on my way home!
The original ticket booking was made through USIT, an Irish travel agency. On the ticket each flight was shown as booked under its own airline code ba, qf and cx. I am presuming that it was booked as a BA ticket although i am not 100% sure. It just seemed strange that no airline gave me any hassle about the bags, only cx wanting to confirm that i had only 1 bag and 1 set of golf clubs! Yet a third party handling agent in Tokyo who did not seem to understand when i was explaining that it was booked as a BA F
flight was the only one who mentioned the excess baggage!

[bealine]

Certainly you should go back to the people who sold you the ticket as, even if they are on separate bookings, all the "One World" partners should honour the highest baggage allowance on the itinerary - so that's BA, QF and CX. If you had "F" class on BA, then that would have given you an allowance of 2 bags at up to 23 kgs each PLUS the golf bag and that allowance should have been honoured right through the "One World" network.

The only airline that would not have had to honour this would have been EK.

If your travel agent can't offer any advice on how to get your money back, perhaps someone who could help is Flying Lawyer. Look up his/her profile here and PM or email him/her if you don't get any satisfaction from your travel agent.