26k Delta RTs - Zürich Winter - all USA

[Tony Crocker]

The boot bag going free with skis is a great thing.

Wasn't James one of those who admonished me for checking my boots flying from France to Utah in 2008, and subsequently having to ski 3 days at Snowbird in rentals? I've learned my lesson and since used the boot bag backpack as a carry-on when flying to ski resorts.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Wasn't James one of those who admonished me for checking my boots flying from France to Utah in 2008, and subsequently having to ski 3 days at Snowbird in rentals?

In the 10+ years of anecdotal experience since then, I'd amend that ^^ comment (assuming I said it) because I usually fly nonstop to the Alps, in which case there's virtually no concern about checking in boots. Conventional wisdom would also say that if you're changing planes on the same airline, you're less likely to have problems -- for example, when I flew last winter from Newark to Nice through Zurich. Even though I only had a 52-minute layover, I wasn't concerned about baggage being delayed because the entire itinerary was on Swiss Air and Zurich is a comparatively well-run airport.

The 2008 comment was probably referring to checking in boots on the way to a ski destination after changing airlines (even if they're alliance partners) at notoriously troublesome LHR or CDG. I would advise the same thing in reverse to Europeans flying to the western U.S. through JFK.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I'll just point out that last January returning home our ski bags went AWOL, not getting on the GVA-AMS flight, our initial leg!

In general I'd agree the odds are better on nonstop flights. However, virtually none of my ski flights seem to be nonstops, just occasionally Vancouver or Calgary. Since I retired, I've always driven to Utah and 3 out of 4x to Colorado.

I also have a vague impression that with tight schedules and full flights, ski bags might be less likely than regular luggage to make a connection.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

In general I'd agree the odds are better on nonstop flights. However, virtually none of my ski flights seem to be nonstops.

In 17 years with usually three destination trips per season, I've only once had ski luggage not arrive with me and luckily that was on the flight home (from Jackson Hole) where it didn't matter. It's certainly helped that 90+% of my flights are nonstops, but could be just dumb luck.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I consider my abysmal record on Alps trips to be an aberration. Maybe it's Europe overall because Alitalia lost my luggage for a day on a nonstop flight from JFK to Rome in 2004. Fortunately it wasn't two days because that's when I was getting on a cruise ship.

I've averaged one flight a year to Canada since 1997 and had two delayed baggage incidents. I have had no luggage incidents on 6 trips to Asia (2 with skis), 6 to the South Pacific (2 with skis), 2 to Africa and 5 to South America (3 with skis).

I keep my fingers crossed on the latter, because Argentina has a bad reputation. Eclipse chaser Xavier Jubier had a very unpleasant incident with Aerolineas of delayed and then damaged luggage on his recent trip to scout the 2019 and 2020 eclipse paths. We did have one glitch with Aerolineas in 2011. They rescheduled our last internal flight so that we would miss our international flight home. Fortunately we caught this in time to complain and get alternative flights arranged.

 

[ChrisC]

I have been lucky with luggage/skis on European ski trips (5) - no delays/losses. The trips have been either on United/American from SFO to either Frankfurt onto Geneva, Newark onto Geneva, London onto Geneva.

West Coast/Canada I have never had any issues with destinations like Vancouver, Calgary, Anchorage, Jackson, Spokane, Montrose, Aspen, Kalispell, etc. United has even put my luggage on earlier connecting flights home to SFO - so I have filed missing luggage reports only to find my bag came in an hour before me. (This record would not stand if I brought skis to Telluride. United purposefully delays skis on full / small prop plane flights from Denver to TEX/MTJ (or any small ski destination) due to weight restrictions.)

My only ski bag loss has been on Southwest - flying to Albany to meet friends local to Lake Placid/Whiteface. They sent my bag to Providence for 2.5 days. However, I was able to rent some demo carving skis - and purchase about $500 in gear. I still had a most everything in a boot bag roller that I always carry on. Southwest reimbursed $700 and gave me about $250 in flight delay coupons - after carefully documenting all the calls/emails/receipts.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Liz is getting used to this. When a ski bag gets delayed, she says, "Let's go shopping!" We have had no problem getting reimbursed.