Help with SAS and baggage fees

[Pearl64]

We are booked on an SAS flight from Stockholm to Oslo in September. The price was fairly good until now I am checking the baggage restrictions. Originally I had looked at the SAS website which I thought stated we were allowed one "free" checked bag up to 44 pounds. I thought I saw that we could pay 20 euros for a second bag. I knew about the 8 kg carry on limit. I figured we could just pay the extra 20 euros for the extra bag and juggle the contents to meet the 44 pound limit and the 8 kg limit carry on. I double checked with SAS yesterday and the gentleman said the 44 pounds was total no matter how many bags we had. This makes no sense. Most suitcases are at least 10 pounds even the ones claimed to be "lightweight". We can pay the overweight fees--a whopping 11 euros for each kilo over the 44 pounds. We are coming to europe on Continental which has a much higher limit but it is the week in Norway before we return home to the US that seems to be the problem.

 

I thought I did my homework but obviously not well enough. So we will live with the restrictions. There isn't much else we can do. But, are there any secrets of the trade as far as packing or juggling that could help even just a little? I know we will need to wear our heaviest clothing and have our pockets filled with weighty items such as my luggage scale, etc. I have tried to pare down our packing to bare essentials but we are faced with multiple weather conditions going from London on our Baltic cruise and then the week in Norway. I know layering is key but one still needs at least one lightweight item and one heavier item. I know Norway in the fjords will be cool and perhaps downright cold in September. Thank heavens our cruise does not have formal nights or we would really be in trouble!!!

 

Does SAS allow one personal item with the carryon or does the 8 kg include the personal item as well? I have two weeks to figure this out. We do not mind paying some over the weight fees but would like to keep it somewhat reasonable. I guess there is no buying any souvenirs unless the place will ship.

 

Thanks to you veteran flyers who know some of these secrets to the trade.

 

Pearl

[Globaliser]

Originally I had looked at the SAS website which I thought stated we were allowed one "free" checked bag up to 44 pounds. I thought I saw that we could pay 20 euros for a second bag. I knew about the 8 kg carry on limit. I figured we could just pay the extra 20 euros for the extra bag and juggle the contents to meet the 44 pound limit and the 8 kg limit carry on. I double checked with SAS yesterday and the gentleman said the 44 pounds was total no matter how many bags we had. This makes no sense.

What's happened here, I think, starts from the fact that SAS is transitioning to a new baggage allowance system.

 

It looks like your ticket is one to which the old system applies: a traditional weight allowance. Your free allowance is 20 kg (44 lb), no matter how many or how few bags you choose to bring, and you pay for every kg excess over that allowance. That's the way it has been around the world for decades, so it can't be the case that it "makes no sense".

 

The new system will be different: your baggage allowance will be one bag only, with the additional requirement that it must not weigh more than 23 kg (50 lb). The downside with the new system is that if you have two bags, each weighing 8 kg, you have to pay for an extra bag because that's one bag over your allowance, irrespective of weight. However, there's a new scale of excess charges coming in, with one extra bag (of up to 23 kg) being only €20 or €30 in total for your itinerary.

 

So I think that you must have seen the old system's allowances, and the new system's excess charges, when you looked at the website.

We can pay the overweight fees--a whopping 11 euros for each kilo over the 44 pounds.

I think that you may find that it's only €6 per kg, because Zone 1 is described as "Domestic DK (except for Greenland)NO/SE within Scandinavia and between Scandinavia and Finland" - which would include Stockholm to Oslo.

But, are there any secrets of the trade as far as packing or juggling that could help even just a little? I know we will need to wear our heaviest clothing and have our pockets filled with weighty items such as my luggage scale, etc. I have tried to pare down our packing to bare essentials but we are faced with multiple weather conditions going from London on our Baltic cruise and then the week in Norway. I know layering is key but one still needs at least one lightweight item and one heavier item. I know Norway in the fjords will be cool and perhaps downright cold in September. Thank heavens our cruise does not have formal nights or we would really be in trouble!!!

Top "secrets of the trade": Pack less, and do some laundry while you're on the move. This is particularly easy on a cruise ship, because they all offer laundry services that work like magic.

 

My companion and I regularly do cruises with formal nights, and we can manage perfectly well with one rolling suitcase each weighing less than 20 kg. That includes bringing gym kit. The only time I get over that is if I bring too much stuff to read: I never seem to learn that there is too much to do on a ship and never as much time to read as I would like.

 

You really don't need as much as you think. If you haven't worn everything twice on the trip, you've packed more than enough. If there's anything you haven't worn on the trip by the time you get home, you've way overpacked. For example, for a 7-night cruise (= 9 nights away), I'd usually pack four polo shirts and four T-shirts, and that usually turns out to be too much.