BMI Baby Airlines > Reviews > New bagage allowance rules

Author's product rating:   

Food Quality	Satisfactory
Customer Service	Friendly and attentive
Punctuality	Satisfactory
Space	Fairly Comfortable
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	Cheap and cheerful
Disadvantages:	Baggage allowances

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I booked flights from Cardiff to Alicante for what i thought was a good deal at the time. A few weeks prior to my departure i was sent my booking itinery and noticed a change to do with the bagage allowances. Apparently from 29th November 1006, BMI now charge a standard rate of £5 per piece of checked bagage, or £2.50 if prebooked over the internet before travel. I contacted BMI and was told that this only applied to bookings made after 29th November, fine, this didnt include me as i booked in October. But i had another query about the luggage allowance per person. Apparently now the new change in place means that each person has a 20Kg bagage allowance as before, but instead of being able to pool allowances within a family together, i.e. I normally put both my sons and my own allowances into 1 large case as its easier to manage than 2, this can no longer be done, as each case can only be a maximum of 20kg, anything over imposes a charge of £5 per kg. What may i ask is the logic in this, the only thing i can see is that it will cause problems for families especially with young children, who would normally include their childrens clothing in with their own rather than try to manage with several cases. Imagine a family with 2 young children and a baby. No allowance is permitted for the baby unless a seat is purchased, so that means cutting down on on the adult allowance to make room for the babies clothing, and then even though the children are entitled to 20kg allowance each, this cannot be combined into 1 case between them unless the weight is 20kg or under. Up til now this family would have had a combined allowance of 80 kg between them which they could have put in possibly 2 large cases, but it will now mean they will have to take more cases and i cant help wonder how they will manage with all this luggage plus try to attend 3 small children!!! Well Done BMI, it must have taken someone a lot of thought to think up how they can make life more difficult for their loyal customers.