Taking bike overseas: alternative options?

Brenchen · Postby **Brenchen** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:51 am

Hi guys,

I'm nearing my departure for France date, but only now I realised that there will be no options for me to add a bike as an extra luggage and pay the extra cost with the tickets I'm getting, since it's paid by the company. Therefore I've prepared my bike and everything else to go overseas, and I'd like to still take it.

Does anyone have any suggestions what I could do in this case? I am going from Brisbane AU to Brest FR (long way away) for 6 months.

Cheers

Crittski · Postby **Crittski** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 10:22 am

What did the airline say when you rang them though?

Brenchen · Postby **Brenchen** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 11:58 am

I haven't anyone yet. Since this is a study trip, the air ticket is paid by my host institution. Therefore they will not get a ticket with the excess luggage for the bike included. So I must seek alternatives.

They haven't told me which airline or showed me the itinerary yet, so I don't know whether I can just make an addition to the existing itinerary, and have the excess luggage payment billed on my own credit card separately... Or whether there are any other alternatives.

Meditator · Postby **Meditator** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 10:50 pm

Why are you talking to us then. Shouldn't you be asking your company what airline you are flying with so you can talk to the airline. What can we possibly tell you. It all depends on what airline you are travelling with.

I would think if you front up to the airport with excess baggage, you will just have to pay its. Its usually a set amount per kg and it will amount to a lot since a bike usually weighs about 17kg in a box.

Brenchen · Postby **Brenchen** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 7:08 am

Meditator wrote:Why are you talking to us then. Shouldn't you be asking your company what airline you are flying with so you can talk to the airline. What can we possibly tell you. It all depends on what airline you are travelling with.

I would think if you front up to the airport with excess baggage, you will just have to pay its. Its usually a set amount per kg and it will amount to a lot since a bike usually weighs about 17kg in a box.

Well I'm asking here is because I know a couple of other ways which can do this, since I know a couple, there may be more options that people from here might know. And exactly that's the problem, if they charge something like 20-50 dollars per kg, I'd be bankrupt! So I do my own research, which involves surveying, to find out what options I have available to me.

toolonglegs · Postby **toolonglegs** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 7:15 am

My bike and box weigh a lot less than 10kgs.

roller · Postby **roller** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 1:48 pm

alternative options:

a) (n+1) buy a new one over there
b) post it separately

Crittski · Postby **Crittski** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 1:58 pm

Brenchen wrote:I haven't anyone yet.

So why not just ring them then...

toofat · Postby **toofat** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 3:40 pm

many of the airlines will class a bike as sporting goods and will charge a set fee if it is oversize ie 158cm lenght plus with plus height
sometimes paying this additional fee will gain you additional weight allowance but on many the weight of the sporting goods are part of your 20 or 23kg allowance

to give you an idea a budget airline I am taking to France has a $70 each way sporting goods charge. Some airlines have a sliding scale charge where the larger the volume the higher the cost

there is, as far as i know, no financially viable alternative, there are plenty of excess baggage forwarding companies but they work on volumetric weight
(lenght times hight times wdth devided by 6000 )for a bike in the smallest bike bag on the market this worked out around $396 door to airport and they claim to be cheaper than airline unaccompanied bagage

Talk to airline head office in australia
establish a price both ways,
get that in writing in case the check in has other ideas
I have spoken to cyclists who have paid $200 plus in excess for a race bike

If you are going for 6 months an alternative is buy a bike from wiggle ribble etc and have it shipped to france (save 20% vat ) then sell it before you leave
or sell your bike here, buy a new one there, fly back with it

Brenchen · Postby **Brenchen** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 4:44 pm

OK, so I took today to send out some emails and made some phone calls.

With the ones I've checked, some allows you to add additional luggage as sporting equipment after the ticket was purchased. This really solved my problems.

The best deal I found at the moment, is with China Southern Airlines, ticket prices are cheap, and an extra bag of sporting equipment (which a bike is considered as) of less than 23kg cost around AU$70. That is given the first free allowance of luggage is not above 23kg, but still need to make sure before we go to the airport.

The most expensive option I found was with Singapore airlines, where for sporting equipment that is equal or less than 15kg, they charge you for the first 6kg at $65/kg.

If I had the option, I'd get CZ, but it would be a longggg flight, their service is average, meals are bad, and no onboard entertainment.

Brenchen · Postby **Brenchen** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 4:45 pm

Crittski wrote:
Brenchen wrote:I haven't anyone yet.
So why not just ring them then...

Just did

Meditator · Postby **Meditator** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 11:35 pm

I still don't understand why you are fussing about like this and why you don't ask your company which airline they are sending you on. It would save all this bother. But you've already done that. When you find out what airline you are travelling on, you will see that most of your phone calls were not necessary.

Brenchen · Postby **Brenchen** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:34 am

Look, the original purpose of this thread wasn't to ask what can the airline do for me, rather I was looking for answers like unaccompanied baggage or even better, some very reliable and well priced postal service particularly for bicycles. If you don't think there are any points to this, then I suggest you probably don't reply, as I think I have a valid question to ask, and it's up to the mods to remove my thread if it is not appropriate.

Meditator · Postby **Meditator** » Fri Jun 22, 2012 9:02 pm

So why didn't you say what you were asking for in the first place. And did you get the answers you were looking for? I think not.

My point is your post as it is written is provoking. It provokes one to make the obvious suggestion. One still can't fathom why you don't find out what airline you are travelling on. Perhaps your doing something your company doesn't want you to do. It makes no difference to me if that is the case. But that's what it rather looks like.

Aushiker · Postby **Aushiker** » Mon Jun 25, 2012 1:24 pm

Brenchen wrote:
Meditator wrote:Why are you talking to us then. Shouldn't you be asking your company what airline you are flying with so you can talk to the airline. What can we possibly tell you. It all depends on what airline you are travelling with.

I would think if you front up to the airport with excess baggage, you will just have to pay its. Its usually a set amount per kg and it will amount to a lot since a bike usually weighs about 17kg in a box.
Well I'm asking here is because I know a couple of other ways which can do this, since I know a couple, there may be more options that people from here might know. And exactly that's the problem, if they charge something like 20-50 dollars per kg, I'd be bankrupt! So I do my own research, which involves surveying, to find out what options I have available to me.

Well said. Also with the wonderful thing called Google and the like others may come across the answers down the track. More wins

Good luck with the other options. I would suggest once you know the airline/flight details give them a ring or check their website to if you can buy excess luggage at a reasonable rate, e.g., like you can with Qantas domestic. Mind you it might be difficult but as you are not the ticket purchaser, but at least ask. Oh I know where you are coming from. Have the same issues here at work where I have to purchase the flights via internal process/corporate credit card.

Other options might be the likes of DHL but the cost may be even higher.

Andrew

Aushiker · Postby **Aushiker** » Mon Jun 25, 2012 1:25 pm

toolonglegs wrote:My bike and box weigh a lot less than 10kgs.

Mine weighs much more, well my touring bike comes in on the road at around 17 kg

Andrew

cavebear2 · Postby **cavebear2** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 12:14 pm

toolonglegs wrote:My bike and box weigh a lot less than 10kgs.

Hmmmm.... a bike box made from Balsa wood?

il padrone · Postby **il padrone** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 12:36 pm

cavebear2 wrote:
toolonglegs wrote:My bike and box weigh a lot less than 10kgs.
Hmmmm.... a bike box made from Balsa wood?

And bike made from Unobtanium

footloose · Postby **footloose** » Sun Jul 01, 2012 2:48 am

Brenchen, (Brendan),
Thanks for asking your question, I learnt something from the answers that were presented.
There are a lot of questions asked in these and other forums, some a little silly perhaps, other not very well presented but they are asked because the person asking really wanted to know something. The answers are also available to anybody that might search for the same or similar answers for their questions.
If I don't agree with the way a question is posed or if I think the question is silly, I don't take issue with the questioner, I simply assume that we are not all the same in the way we go looking for answers and our knowledge levels are not the same.
It's pleasing to see that most participants in this thread attempted to give you an answer rather than questioning your need to ask the question in the way that you did.

Brenchen · Postby **Brenchen** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 2:34 pm

footloose wrote:Brenchen, (Brendan),
Thanks for asking your question, I learnt something from the answers that were presented.
There are a lot of questions asked in these and other forums, some a little silly perhaps, other not very well presented but they are asked because the person asking really wanted to know something. The answers are also available to anybody that might search for the same or similar answers for their questions.
If I don't agree with the way a question is posed or if I think the question is silly, I don't take issue with the questioner, I simply assume that we are not all the same in the way we go looking for answers and our knowledge levels are not the same.
It's pleasing to see that most participants in this thread attempted to give you an answer rather than questioning your need to ask the question in the way that you did.

Thank you very much for backing me up. And a very to-the-point way of putting it

It's good to know I'm not alone out there thinking like the way I do. And by the way, love your forum name! Performed in that musical myself as lead keyboard, absolutely adored the pieces!

Regarding bike boxes (although not directly in the scope of this thread, but related), I got the apollo bike pod, quite decent I assume, did hear some good reviews for it. I've basically left it at the shops until I leave (don't have enough room to put it where I live).

MarkHunt · Postby **MarkHunt** » Tue Sep 04, 2012 10:33 pm

Hi Brenchen I feel you too… traveling overseas with sports equipment can be a very complicated thing. I used to fly a lot with my kayak and as you can guess I couldn’t hide it in an extra bag. It was expensive but worth the money.

Brenchen · Postby **Brenchen** » Tue Sep 25, 2012 6:18 pm

Well I got here safe and sound. Since I flew with China Southern, their sporting equipment policy is very cheap, I think it was like $40 or $70 for an extra 23kg of bicycle.

However, coming back is going to be expensive, as my first board is with Air France, so I'm considering shipping it back by boat with some of my other stuff...