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Sandy Holmes's avatar

this does NOT qualify as a disaster, only an annoyance. When flying JetBlue to Boston a few weeks ago, I had a carryon and a personal item, backpack. I realized that my phone with boarding pass was inside my tiny purse, inside my backpack, so I pulled it out to register my boarding pass, then just slung the purse over my shoulder to quickly proceed. The agent stopped me and said, you will have to return the purse into your backpack! I said -- "well, it just came out of there, there is obviously room, can't I just proceed in order to speed things up and I will put it back onboard? " NO! she replied. So of course, I'm now fumbling with the stress and slowed up everyone behind me while I complied. What happened to good old common sense?

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Adak's avatar

Understand the stress. But JetBlue is the ONLY carrier to limit two carry ons! Too many carriers vocally say one carry on bag and a personal item, purse, briefcase, backpack. But all too frequently, the purse is the size of a carry on, and the backpack is the size of a steel frame hiking unit.

Would be nice to have TSA step up and limit at security for all!

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Polly's avatar

Oh, I had something like this happen a few months ago. Had a few little things in a tiny sling bag, so I could have my ID and boarding pass handy, and not be digging around in my tote bag. Same thing, grumpy gate agent made me step aside until I had put the tiny sling bag in the tote bag.

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Frances's avatar

Never had one yet, not a fee, and yes I am almost always overpacked on the way home 🤣🤣🤣

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Polly's avatar

Oh, Helsinki! Favorite city in the world. (So far). First visit, 15 years ago, we had a university apartment just around the corner from where Hotel Maria is now, on Maneesikatu. Have stayed all over the city over about 10 visits, but favorite airbnb is in Katajanokka. Gorgeous area, great architecture. We’re usually in Finland this time of year for an amazing classical music festival in Lahti, celebrating the music of Finland’s own Jean Sibelius. In Helsinki, don’t miss Cafe Regatta for a lovely outdoor setting with great coffee and delicious korvapuusti. And Restaurant Purpur serves terrific Georgian food. Seems to be quite a few Georgian restaurants in Helsinki these days.

Lugggage story, flying Heathrow to Helsinki. I had a very heavy laptop and other gear in my carryon. Check in clerk made me repack. I put the heavy stuff in a tote bag over my shoulder. Same amount of weight, differently distributed. I was baffled by her approval of that strategy and asked if I could redistribute it after security. She quite rudely said “I don’t care what you do after you go through security.” Bizarre one!

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Barbara Bibel's avatar

I was flying from San Francisco to Istanbul on Turkish Airlines, using United miles. I had to change planes in Paris and I had a checked bag, which is free with Unitd Mileage Plus. When I got to Paris, Turkish Airline tired to make me pay 200 Euros for a chekced bag. They were soing this to another passenger as well. I speak flunet Frnch so I was able to argue and they did nit charge me. Turkish Airlins is a Star Allaince member, so they should not be doing this.

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Tim's avatar

A couple of stories:

1. Trying to fly from Toronto to Detroit; I had a checked bag because my wife and I were coming off of vacation and I had work in Detroit. Anyway, due to heavy thunderstorms, my flight was cancelled; the alternate flights would not work, so I ended up driving from Toronto to Detroit. The checked bag found me a few days later.

2. Not a disaster: I did some work in California and was given a bottle of wine. I went to UPS to ship the wine-they wouldn't do it. I went to Fed-Ex and they said they had to have a liquor license to ship alcohol but was willing to take the wine off my hands. They did give me some bubble wrap, so I wrapped the wine with the bubble wrap and some shirts and ended up checking my bag with the wine in it (usually that bag was my roll-on). Cost me $25 to get that wine home--but it was good.

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Patricia Dwyer's avatar

Because of a delay in Phoenix I missed my connection in Heathrow to Cairo. They found me another flight through Istanbul that got me in to Cairo the next morning in time to take a planned tour. However, my luggage never made the connection. My air tag told me it arrived the next day so they sent someone to retrieve it but they said it wasn’t there. I said “But my AirTag says it arrived at the Cairo Airport.” I guess they never heard of an AirTag and didn’t believe me. After 5 days of me insisting it was there they tried a different terminal and Voila! There it was!

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