Air Asia Indonesia - Weird luggage pricing

[Pyndle]

Hi,

I am very confused by Air Asia's pricing. If I have 2 bags of 20kg, one with my clothes, one with my dive gear, I can either purchase 40kg of luggage for 1m or purchase 20kg luggage + 20kg sport equipment and it's only 850k.

Is there any reason why 1kg of sport equipment is not the same as 1kg of luggage?

My scuba gear is in a regular travel bag - are they gonna try to screw me over and say this is not a sport equipment? Does it need something special on it to be sport equipment?

Thanks!

 

[stepfen]

Google is your friend my friend!
I just googled airasia sport equipment and got this:

https://support.airasia.com/s/article/Flying-with-sports-equipments?language=en_GB

From it:
Certain sports equipment such as golf sets , bicycle , diving equipment , and ski equipment / snowboard , and cricket set will require us an extra-frugal handling procedure, different from the regular checked baggage due to their fragile and sensitive physical nature.

So diving gear definitely qualify for sports equipment. Now, don't ask me how come something that needs "extra-frugal handling procedure" turns out to be cheaper per kilo than normal baggage. Even google doesn't know that.

In your case, worst that can happen is they ask you to open your suitcase to check that indeed it is diving equipment. Most of the time they don't bother though.

Enjoy your holidays

 

[Centrals]

Put ONLY your sporting equipment in the bag that is destined as sport equipment. Because the staff might check it during the check in. They have the right to ask you to transfe all non sporting equipment, if there is any, to the non sporting bag.
Photographic equipment is NOT a sport equipment.
If you do NOT want to go through all these hassle than just pay more.

Last time I flew AA, the staff asked me what was the content in my bag. When I mentioned scuba equipment, he was NOT very happy at all and had to be convinced by his colleague that it was fine. The parting word from him was: never ever mention sporting equipment in the bag.
I had flew AA on few occasions and the question was never raised.

 

[boletus1973]

be carefull with them...
two years ago they disrupted all my flights and asked me a lot of money for changing flights with a schedule that was wrong with my intercontinental connections... i've asked a full refund... they took 8 months for refund me and they give my money back only because i've payed an asian travel agent that do all the work... whitout her they never refund me(600euro).

 

[Edward3c]

My dive bag, no logo etc, just goes normal baggage as I include none dive stuff in it. Only time I elected to use sport equivalent option was transiting the US. Never again. Use AA whenever going to Koh Lipe.

 

[Pyndle]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Should be fine then, it's only dive gear in my bag, but it's in an osprey backpack which definitely doesn't look like diving stuff. Happy to open it for them to check.

So diving gear definitely qualify for sports equipment. Now, don't ask me how come something that needs "extra-frugal handling procedure" turns out to be cheaper per kilo than normal baggage. Even google doesn't know that.

This was actually my question But I guess the answer is "it makes no sense at all / someone very stupid made this rule", like many times in developing countries. Not going to complain though, for once it should work in my favor haha!

@boletus1973 As much as Air Asia sucks, I regret to inform you that this is the standard in aviation and absolutely all airlines suck really bad. Some of them have more chances of giving you a bad experience than others, but the second something goes wrong, you're in for a lot of ********. Waited over 1 year for a refund from Lufthansa, about 10 months with Air France too. I'm sure it would've been the same with any other airline. It's just one of these industry where the standards are very low...

Thanks!

 

[Luko]

Waited over 1 year for a refund from Lufthansa, about 10 months with Air France too. I'm sure it would've been the same with any other airline. It's just one of these industry where the standards are very low...

Have to disagree with the assumptions that all carrier policies are the same.

That has been indeed an issue for COVID period flights with european companies but it's all past story then ( For instance, the french gvt forced AF to refund all of their clients for this period, after they thought they would only give vouchers, in fact most of the refund delay came from agencies/intermediaries who had been refunded.but weren't that keen on cashing it out.).

AirAsia is a different kind of breed, the exemple that was given to you happened after the COVID period, especially in 2022 when AA was canceling their flights randomly. (happened to me as well, they sold me a ticket for a flight they KNEW months before it wouldn't fly, I had to show them it was still available for sale on their website at the time I complained while they had it canceled on their itineraries. they didn't want to refund and only allowed me to purchase a more expensive flight with additional change cost.).

Even LionAir had more comprehensive exchange policies. Garuda has been very flexible as well (I recently could use a canceled ticket from 2020 to purchase a part of a ticket I used in december 2023).

 

[boletus1973]

@boletus1973 As much as Air Asia sucks, I regret to inform you that this is the standard in aviation and absolutely all airlines suck really bad. Some of them have more chances of giving you a bad experience than others, but the second something goes wrong, you're in for a lot of ********. Waited over 1 year for a refund from Lufthansa, about 10 months with Air France too. I'm sure it would've been the same with any other airline. It's just one of these industry where the standards are very low...

Thanks!

Not quite the same, as already said by luko, they sold me a non-existent flight.. and continued to sell it for months insisting that everything was ok.. they sent the communication only a month before the flight and changed the routes as they did convenient for them... if you wanted the only flight that was compatible with your schedule they asked you double the price...
when I discovered that they were scamming me, unfortunately I had already booked a Lion Air flight following my Air Asia route and also a night in a hotel... I had to forcefully cancel the Lion Air flight and they refunded me almost 90% within 24 hours! Of course I lost the night in the hotel which was not refundable... my mistake...
To be refunded I was lucky enough to come across this Filipino travel agent who made a business on Airasia refunds... maybe now it's everything perfect... but they will never see my money again!

 

[Centrals]

This was actually my question But I guess the answer is "it makes no sense at all / someone very stupid made this rule", like many times in developing countries. Not going to complain though, for once it should work in my favor haha!

AA could have just charged the same for everything instead of offering a small discount on sport equipment. Take that as a concession(~US$10.00) because AA is not known to be generous. I would not be at all surprised that many passengers will pack the dedicated bag for sport equipment with something else.
PAL used to have the same policy on sport equipment but that was history.

 

[scubaozy]

I think point is to sell you 2 separate baggage classes; If I have to pack only dive equipment to sport luggage, I have to buy another baggage that is also 20kg for the rest of my personal stuff.