Generally, once I walk away from the ticket counter, I’m golden. Once, however, at the airport in Puerto Rico, a ticketing agent who had neglected to charge me for the bike sent someone to the security line to find me. Sheesh. But this was at a small airport in the middle of the night, and that’s the only time it’s happened.
This is always the most stressful part of my trips. It’s not only the principle of paying extra to fly my bike that makes me cringe—it’s the money! When I travel to races, I try to at least break even on the venture. Having to pull out a Benjamin just to get my bike on board the plane could break the bank pretty quickly. Considering I flew with my bike nine times in 2006, that’s a potential cost of $1800 on the least bike-friendly airlines.
Luckily, I managed to get through the season with only a few excess baggage charges. I used all the tricks I knew or had heard from other cyclists. I have a friend who’s a physical therapist; she always says her bag contains a “wheeled chair.” Said fast, it sounds like “wheelchair.” (“It’s got a seat and wheels, hasn’t it?” she asks with wide-eyed innocence.) Then there’s the teammate who always uses the massage table line. Why an airline would charge for a bike but not a heavy massage table, I have no idea, but it works for her.
For those contemplating traveling with a bike, here’s a synopsis of my recommendations on how to avoid extra charges:
1) Consider the airline carefully. Continental is by far the most miserly when it comes to bikes, and I’ve never had good luck with its agents. United used to offer a bike voucher program through USA Cycling, which was useful. Now that they’ve ended the voucher program, though, they’re probably not a good choice bike-wise because the agents have a lot of experience recognizing bike cases. Usually foreign airlines don’t have the bike-gouging regulations that US airlines do, so they’re a good bet. I thought that US airlines didn’t charge on foreign flights, but Continental proved me wrong on that one. Jet Blue has been the friendliest domestic airline I’ve encountered. Although technically they charge a bike fee, too, in my experience they concern themselves mostly with luggage weight and don’t whip out the tape measure to check dimensions.
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