We have been traveling around the world and going on surf trips for well over a decade and one of the biggest crimes against humanity that we have witnessed are the outrageous fees that airlines charge for surfboards. Even though most board bags weigh less than your check-in suitcase, and definitely less than your golf clubs, chances are you’re going to pay (in some cases a lot) extra to take your boards with you. I recently reached out to a few friends that work as ticket agents in San Diego, Los Angeles and Honolulu to pick their brains about how to hopefullyavoid fees. Disclaimer: there is no fool proof way to avoid baggage fees, as it is 100% up to the ticket agent. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t, even if it only works once, it can save you well over a hundred dollars, and it is worth trying. The following tips are based on a decade of experience, observation and feedback from the ticket agents.
- When booking a flight, take into account the airline board bag policies. We are flying to the Dominican Republic next week and the flights to POP from LAX were essentially the same price on American and United. United recently announced that they lowered their surfboard fees from trips originating from or to California to the cost of a check in ($35), down from $150 each way. American Airlines still thinks it’s a good idea to charge $150 each way. Because of the recent policy change, United just earned 5 tickets and American lost out on a lot of money. I have noticed that budget airlines are the least flexible and will be the least likely to give out favors. Good luck getting past the ticket agents at Spirit, Norwegian, XL Airways…etc. We always fly Alaska Airlines to Hawaii, Costa Rica and Cuba because we have an Alaska credit card and our boards are free. They also tend to have the cheapest fares. Paying attention to the airline when booking flights might end up saving you big.
- Throw out your best game. My husband and I have a unique advantage. We both surf, so we have a policy that when we are called up to the counter, the spouse that is of the opposite sex of the ticket agent is the one who does the talking. The outcome, of course, depends on your game and the hardness of the ticket agent’s heart, but it is a good strategy. A little bit of flirting will never hurt and can only help. My husband speaks fluent Spanish, so he is in charge whenever we fly to Latin America. Our success has varied, but we have saved probably around a thousand dollars on multiple flights over the decade. This point is not an exact science, but we continue to employ it. Plus, as a couple who has been married along time and have been out of the dating game for almost 15 years, its a great way to see if you’ve still got it!
- Pack light. Are you going to the tropics for a week? You can probably get by on a few pair of board shorts or bikinis, a few pair of t-shirts, and an extra pair of sandals. You don’t need to bring your sun hat, 20 bars of wax, 3 outfits for each day, heels, wedges, pumps, tons of makeup, and a years subscription of your favorite surf magazine. We make it a point to pack all of our clothes in our personal item if they can’t fit into our board bag, (we each have an enormous backpack for traveling). On longer trips to multiple countries with differences in climate/precipitation we try to share a carry on too. Since we typically travel as a family, we try to pack light and limit the amount of bags for not only simplicity, but for luggage allowance purposes. If we are each allowed 1 check in, and we only check in our surfboards and maybe 1 other bag, the chances are that the ticket agent will be more lenient, since we are only using half of our luggage allowance. This has worked multiple times for us, most notably on Delta Airlines. This was confirmed as a good strategy by one of our ticket agent contacts. The less you bring, the more likely it is that you will escape fees and charges.
- Shorter is more discreet. Smaller is lighter. This tip was confirmed by all three of our contacts. It’s a lot easier to look the other way when someone brings a 5’10’’ or a 6’0’’ board bag than it is when someone drops of a bag that looks like it has a canoe inside. We hilariously watched a guy on our flight to New Zealand trying to get his 10’ board bag on the scale. He was banging everything around him, making a ton of noise and drawing the attention of everyone around him. I doubt he was able to charm the agent and quietly plead for leniency. Not only are short boards much shorter, they’re much lighter. If you show up with a single board bag that weighs 35 lbs and a backpack, when you are allowed two check ins that can weigh 50 lbs each, there is a better chance you can fly under the radar and avoid those fees.
- Use an extra board sock. Our boards are usually between 5’6’’ and 6’6’’. We each have an oversized board sock that we stuff two boards into. We pad the rails and tighten the tail, then we put another board on top of the two. We usually only do this for the airlines that tend to count and have a two board maximum, like Spirit and Hawaiian. This trick will not save you money, but it will allow you to bring another board. Also, we pack that board bag as tight as possible to discourage the ticket agents from actually opening it and rummaging through our bags.
When we travel, we always go with the expectation that we are going to pay full price. Expect the worst, so that way if you don’t escape the fees, you already have your expectations set and any breaks you get will just add to your stoke and excitement. We have had about a 30% success rate, usually with Jet Blue and Delta, but with other airlines as well. We have also noticed international ticket agents (Especially in the Caribbean and the South Pacific) seem to be much more lenient than American agents and we have had better success avoiding fees when flying out of San Diego airport as opposed to LAX. While we prefer to bring our boards with us wherever we go, sometimes renting makes more sense. We have rented really good boards in surfing hotspots like Spain and France and in places you wouldn’t expect a decent rental, like India and Sri Lanka. We always do thorough research to see what the rental situation is like or if locals will loan you a board.
