Lufthansa latest rules for sport equipment baggage

Wotcha, fellow TTers

Hope that some of you may find the following useful.

With baggage allowances getting ever-more niggardly, and with excess baggage rates getting (sorry) sky-high, it's good to know that you can often get specially-reduced excess baggage rates for sports equipment. Such is the case with Lufthansa.

What qualifies as "sports equipment", tho', is a rather grey area.

The Baggage Section of the Lufthansa website has two pdfs for download - one for sports equipment based on weight and one based on number of "pieces" of baggage.

In both, err, cases the pdfs refer to the following sports only:

• Golf equipment
  
• Skis
  
• Water Skis
  
• Bicycles, tandems
  
• Diving equipment with tank
  
• Pole vaulting poles
  
• Surf boards
  
• Windsurfing equipment
  
• Canoes, kayaks
  

This would seem to discriminate against Rock / Mountain Climbing / Hiking, so I called up the Lufthansa Customer Service people at Frankfurt Airport, and after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing they confirmed that this sort of equipment was eligible for the special rates. For me this means a cost of €35 each way for a 15kg cargo bag of assorted kit, as opposed to the intra-Europe "rack rate" for excess baggage of €10 per kilo - or a whopping €150 each way.

You need to be aware that if you want to take advantage of this deal, you need to inform the airline a minimum of 24 hours ahead of your flight so that they can flag this on your flight record.

So - if your particular sport ain't on Lufthansa's (or other airline's) list - angling or cricket, for instance (both of which can add a significant amount of heft to your holiday luggage) - then I recommend that you call the airline well ahead of time and get confirmation (or otherwise) of their policy for that sport.

Kuzzer

p.s. I love that they single out pole vaulting poles on the list; one forgets what a mass-appeal participation sport that is....

Are pole vaulting poles collapsible? or do they strap them to the side of the plane.

Inside or outside?

UPDATE

Going out, the €35 thing worked like a dream, but coming back - checking in at Manchester Airport - the bar stewards charged me GBP30 for the bag and a GBP10 handling fee - c. €50 at current exchange rates. Just goes to show that the UK can trump Germany when it comes to bureaucracy

Lufthansa customer services will be getting a polite missive requesting a refund. Wish me luck.

K

The best way to deal with such bureaucracy is to not tell them exactly what equipment you have. For instance I travel with my kayak......how many people making a booking for this kind of sports equipment know what a kayak is? Score a maximum of 10 points for this an 'not many' is the correct answer. Therefore I tell them I've got a surf kayak. The first thing they potentially pick up on is the surf thing......if you're totally honest with them (not that I'm not!) and tell them you have a kayak they always say what's one of those, then they think a 'canoe'. This then, ultimately means lotsw of money coming from this customer!

So I guess if you've got cricket equipment, could be be classed as one of named items on their list......I hope you're getting the gist of this!

I suspect realistically I'm not going to get very far with them when I ask to have my glider transported for 35 Euros....

You know - in the UK they complain about Germany & Ze Rules but I'm afraid to say that there is an increasing tendency for things in the UK to go bad - particularly in times of minor stress - didnt use to happen like this I tell ye

Now from BA travelling back to Hamburg after Christmas in UK 20+ years ago with their "surcharge" on hand luggage. I did get that refunded but its annoying to say the least.

If you're a frequent flyer golf bags go free. At least I've never had to pay anything. Don't know about other equipment...