Flying Back To Oz

[taxidriver]

I'm going to book tickets soon for me, my wife and baby son soon, so I guess that my son's ticket will cost 10% of mine,right? Anyway, what I need to know is how to go about taking my desk top computer with me (normal size CPU and LCD monitor). I'll be over the allowed weight after we pack our suitcases, but not sure how much.

I could take it and just turn up with it and see what happens I suppose

If anyone who knows the score or have any experience with this, could you please advise me on the best way to get it on the plane.

Thanks!!

[smacko]

just box it up, make sure you do a good job as it will be bumped around a bit.

between you and your wife you should have 40kg allow (going off the standard 20kg person ticket)... so if you dont have a lot of clothes you should be okay weight wise.

[TizMe]

If it was me, I would just pull the hard drive out first and carry that in my hand luggage where it wont get knocked around as much.

Also, you should be doing this regularly anyway, but I'd also make sure that I have a good backup of all data before it gets moved.

In my case at least, my data is much more valuable than any hardware.

[grahamb]

I assume you are travelling on Thai here. If so, your son's ticket will cost 10% of the published fare which is not necessarily the same as the fare that yours is ticketed on. The published fare doesn't seem to be the same as the full fare but it is more expensive than the normal discounted fare that you and your wife may be travelling on.

In our situation recently, our son's fare was the equivalent of 18% of my fare.

If you are travelling on another airline, check with them as the policy varies from airline to airline despite what Thai told me when I tried to get to the bottom of this issue in their Silom Rd office. Don't get me started on that rant...

With his ticket, your son will get 10kg + a pushchair/stroller free so your luggage allowance will be 50kg + pushchair/stroller assuming you're in economy class without any frequent flyer status.

Anyway, back to your question about your PC... I have hand carried a desktop computer on the plane but that was before we were travelling with a baby. I certainly wouldn't do that today as I'd need the hand baggage allowance for baby gear! Like TizMe though, I would remove the hard disk and hand carry that.

When we checked in with our baby, we found that Thai were fairly lenient with the baggage allowances but we had upgraded to business and I have a Thai gold card so I'm not sure if they were lenient because of the baby or because of the class + card. To be honest, it was probably a bit of both. When we checked in for economy flights within Europe, the check-in staff also seemed lenient because of the baby but again, I also had frequent flyer status so that probably helped.

In conclusion, what I'm trying to say is: give it a go and make sure that your son is looking cute and smiles at the staff. We were at the One Stop Service Centre yesterday and ours was the centre of attention. Maybe it was my imagination but we certainly seemed to get dealt with quicker because of him!

[Thai Chi]

Taxidriver, I do not know when you were last in OZ, but since Feb this year there has been some changes to the "PASSENGER DUTY FREE CONDITIONS" Basically any Electronic equipment (computer) Over $900 AUD must be declared. I'd say your one cost about $899 Also, the amount of Alcohol has increased to 2.25 Ltrs times 2 for you. (wife) and a quote from Aust Customs: "You can pool your duty free concessions if you are a family travelling together" Unfortuatley passengers under 18 do not qualify for duty free I noticed on my last trip back to OZ that the Johnnie walker scothch I buy for friends was about $8 cheaper at Don Muang duty free compared to Brisbane duty free shop. The only hassel is carrying 4 bottles on the 'plane. Hope you have a great trip

[taxidriver]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, I think I'll just turn up with it and play the game and if they charge me for extra weight, then I'll pay it.

Cheers!