Whose baggage rules apply to your ticket
Baggage is not governed by the airline whose website you booked on, nor necessarily by the airline whose flight number is on your itinerary. On a single ticket covering more than one carrier, the allowance is generally determined by the carrier operating the most significant portion of the journey, and the resulting allowance is printed on your electronic ticket. That printed allowance is the one that governs the whole ticket, even on sectors flown by a carrier whose own published allowance is smaller.
This produces outcomes travellers find surprising in both directions. A long-haul carrier's generous two-piece allowance can carry through onto a short domestic connection operated by a partner that would otherwise charge for the first bag. Equally, a restrictive fare family on the long-haul sector can impose its allowance on the whole journey. Check the allowance line on the e-ticket rather than the marketing page of whichever airline you have in mind.
Fare family matters as much as carrier. Basic and entry-level fares frequently strip the checked allowance and, on several US carriers for domestic travel, the full-size carry-on as well. The comparison table on our flights hub sets out the usual pattern, and we read your specific allowance before you buy.
One ticket versus separate tickets: the through-check question
If your journey is on one ticket and the carriers hold an interline agreement, your bags are normally tagged to your final destination and travel through the connection without you touching them. If your journey is on two separately purchased tickets, that obligation does not exist. Each ticket carries its own allowance and its own fees, and at the connection you will usually reclaim your bags, clear any customs formalities, and check in again from scratch — paying a second time for the same suitcase.
The cost is not only financial. A separate-ticket connection puts the entire delay risk on you: if the first flight is late, the second airline owes you nothing, and neither does anyone else. Self-transfer itineraries are legal and legitimate, and cheap search engines build them constantly, but they should be a deliberate choice made with the trade-off understood. Our advisors will not construct one without saying so plainly — the wider argument is on how flight pricing works.
Two further wrinkles. Some countries require all passengers to reclaim and re-check baggage at the first point of entry regardless of ticketing, so plan the connection time accordingly. And when a disruption reroutes you onto a different carrier mid-journey, a bag already in the system does not automatically follow — tell the agent rebooking you, and see flight changes.
Sports equipment, instruments and outsize items
Most carriers accept sports equipment, and most treat it as an ordinary checked bag when it falls inside standard weight and size. Skis, golf clubs and dive gear commonly travel this way. Bicycles and surfboards are more often charged as oversize, and bicycles frequently carry a specific packing requirement — handlebars turned, pedals removed, tyres partially deflated, in a hard or purpose-made case. Firearms for sport are a category of their own, with declaration, locking and ammunition rules that must be followed exactly.
Musical instruments split three ways. Small instruments travel as cabin baggage where they fit within the carry-on band. Medium instruments — a cello, a guitar in a hard case — are usually carried by buying an extra seat, which must be booked in advance with the correct code on the reservation and comes with its own restrictions on where it may be seated. Large instruments travel as checked or freight baggage at the owner's risk, which for a valuable instrument is rarely acceptable.
The common failure is arriving with an item nobody was told about. Every one of these categories has a limit on how many the aircraft can accept, and acceptance is not guaranteed on the day. Tell us what you are carrying at booking and we will confirm the carrier's conditions and place the request on the record — see flight reservations for how special requests work.
Lithium batteries and restricted items
Spare lithium batteries and power banks must be carried in the cabin and are prohibited in checked baggage, for the straightforward reason that a battery fire in the hold cannot be reached by the crew. Devices with batteries installed may generally be checked, but the sensible practice is to keep them with you. Above stated watt-hour thresholds, batteries require carrier approval, and damaged or recalled batteries are prohibited outright.
Beyond batteries, the restricted list follows international dangerous-goods rules that no airline can waive: flammable liquids and gases, most aerosols beyond limited personal-care quantities, corrosives, certain lithium-powered mobility devices, and e-cigarettes and vaping devices, which must be carried in the cabin and not used or charged in flight. Medication and medical devices have their own accommodations and are best declared in advance.
Assume the airport screening rules of every country you transit apply to you, not only the one you departed from. Liquid limits, powder restrictions and electronics rules vary, and a connection through a third country can apply its own screening to a bag you never intended to open.
When a bag is delayed or damaged
Report it before you leave the baggage hall. That single act creates the property irregularity report that every subsequent step depends on, and reporting after you have left the airport makes the claim materially harder. Take the reference number, keep your boarding pass, and keep the bag tag receipt.
Then keep receipts. Where a bag is delayed, carriers are generally expected to cover reasonable essential purchases while you wait, and the evidence for that is receipts, not recollection. Check your travel insurance and your credit card benefits in parallel — card-linked baggage cover frequently pays faster than an airline claim, and the two are not mutually exclusive.
Time limits are short and strictly applied. For international carriage under the Montreal Convention, damage to checked baggage must be notified in writing within seven days of receipt of the bag, and delay within twenty-one days from the date the bag was placed at your disposal. Miss the window and the claim is generally barred regardless of merit. If your booking is with us, call and we will file and chase the claim with the carrier.
Liability limits and declared value
Airline liability for baggage is limited, not open-ended. For international journeys governed by the Montreal Convention, liability for checked baggage is capped at a figure expressed in Special Drawing Rights — an IMF currency basket — and that cap is reviewed periodically. It applies per passenger, not per bag. For US domestic travel, the Department of Transportation sets a separate minimum liability figure that carriers must meet.
Two practical consequences. First, if you are carrying something worth more than the limit, you can make a special declaration of value at check-in and pay a supplementary charge, which raises the ceiling. Second, and more usefully, do not check anything you cannot afford to lose. Valuables, electronics, jewellery, essential medication, travel documents and anything irreplaceable belong in the cabin, and most carriers explicitly exclude or limit liability for such items in checked baggage in any case.
Getting your allowance confirmed in writing before you fly
The cleanest defence against a disagreement at check-in is a document. Ask us and your written confirmation will state the carry-on and checked allowance per passenger and per sector, drawn from the fare rule and the operating carrier's published conditions, with the governing carrier identified on multi-carrier itineraries. It takes an advisor a minute and it settles the question before you are standing at a desk with a queue behind you.
Do the same for anything unusual: the instrument, the bicycle, the extra seat, the mobility device. Where a fee applies for adding baggage after ticketing, our part of it is published in the service fee schedule and the carrier's part is passed through unchanged; refund treatment on prepaid bags follows the refund and cancellation policy and the carrier's own rules. If your bags are going straight into a rental car at the other end, it is also worth checking that the vehicle class actually fits them — a compact rated for two cases will not take four, and the counter will not upgrade you free because it does not — see car rental. It is worth asking, too, whether wherever you are staying will hold luggage before check-in, because that decides whether the first afternoon is usable. Anything unclear, ask the desk before you pack.