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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Long ago I read about cruise ship passengers sending their luggage via FeDEX to the ship. In that case it was to avoid airport workers pilfering the bottles of pills that many cruise ship passengers need for a long voyage. If I could, I would send my bags by almost any other means than "checking" the bag with the airline. Every other service has a legal obligation to deliver the goods, or at least try to get my bag to the destination, rather than pawn it off on a fly-by-night local delivery van service.

I had a choice last year to take a 4-hour flight via commercial airline, or an 8-hour flight in the back of a military transport. Everyone else opted for the 4-hour commercial flight. But for me, I would rather spend an extra four hours sleeping in the back of a C-130, sleeping literally on top of my luggage, than risk losing yet another bag to an airline.

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The first rule of flying with medication is that it goes in the carry-on, over everything else. If you can't fit so much as a book alongside your meds? Tough, meds have priority. In the US at least, the airline simply isn't allowed to make you check your medication, and the TSA is not allowed to confiscate prescription medication in its original container. OTC stuff, beyond what you need on the actual flight, should just be purchased at the destination.

FedEx in that context is probably because it has less trouble getting through customs, rather than for airline employees.

They don’t “confiscate” meds. They steal them.

I’ve never flew and got my bag back with the lock still on it (it was taken off and rummaged through). My wife has had underwear stolen. My kids gym shoes were stolen.

It’s like airlines require a criminal history for bag service.

Always take important or expensive stuff in carry on.

> It’s like airlines require a criminal history for bag service.

Well hey, they did their time and paid their debt to society right? Should they continue being unemployable for life, forced to return to a life of crime? Give those guys a second chance to earn an honest living and show the world they aren't defined by their past.

(Is it actually true that airlines hire people with criminal histories to handle luggage? I think they actually require clean background checks for those jobs, for obvious reasons, but such background checks are often the subject of the sort of criticism I just presented.)

What's more likely, stuff gets lost or kids forget to pack it, or this guy has gotten perv bag handlers that can sniff out women's underwear and children's gym shoes and stole them, risking their job in the process? If they weren't able to sniff them out, then they rummage through bags randomly as they are running down conveyor belts to find clothing items and shoes to steal.

For some seeing a trivially defeated security mechanism like a luggage lock is an invitation to defeat it. Doubly so if it's attached to expensive luggage...

"Well hey, they did their time and paid their debt to society right? Should they continue being unemployable for life, forced to return to a life of crime? Give those guys a second chance to earn an honest living and show the world they aren't defined by their past."

While this is true, it may be a good idea to employ them in jobs where it isn't tempting/super easy to get away with theft?

Roofers, plumbers, and the like have a lot harder time stealing things than airplane baggage handlers...

> They don’t “confiscate” meds. They steal them.

Which is why you put them in your carry-on: so that it is never in possession of the baggage handlers. The TSA employees at the security checkpoint won't generally steal things right in front of your face and under the cameras.

Sending three boxes of t-shirts to Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, I found out that FedEx actually has an office in the hotel/resort. Fedex wouldn't deliver the boxes to my room for free (which I'd paid for, since I'd put my room number on the address form when shipping), and the office is actually about a half mile away down very long marble-tiled hallways.

The hotel wouldn't let me use one of their hand carts/trolleys (they had to be handled by their bell people), and they wouldn't go with me even for a substantial tip, because they had an agreement with FedEx.

FedEx charged me $150 to deliver the boxes to my room -- more than it'd cost to ship halfway across the country.

This was about ten years ago, so things might be different now.

> Fedex wouldn't deliver the boxes to my room for free (which I'd paid for, since I'd put my room number on the address form when shipping)

Ship a package to a specific apartment number and there's a 50/50 chance Fedex, UPS or any of the others will deliver it to the front desk / mailroom instead of to the door of that apartment.

For what it’s worth, delivering to the mailroom is typical for NYC doorman residential buildings and probably elsewhere in large buildings.

But those buildings also usually have a trolley and will loan it to you for free.

Yeah, I'm surprised the hotel wouldn't let you use the trolley yourself, every hotel I've ever been in has those trolleys available for any guest to use themselves. Maybe they had unionized bell hops and this policy was to protect their work? Really bizarre that they wouldn't do the work themselves for a heavy tip though.

If FedEx cannot guarantee they can do it then it shouldn't be advertised. Instead they should warn customers at the time of purchase when they won't be able to, or where there is additional cost.

Everything else is false advertising.

So you expect them to keep track of the rules for every building in the world and dynamically adjust at the time of shipment?

Sure, they could do this for buildings they have shipped to within x amount of days, and therefore know the policy. However, that would then leak information to those buildings out to potential thieves.

Yes, I expect they can manage a boolean per building and a notice to users when that's marked.

Thieves likely already know building delivery policies.

> So you expect them to keep track of the rules for every building in the world and dynamically adjust at the time of shipment?

Yeah, this sounds technically possible but wildly impractical.

Which means they shouldn't advertise a capability they know they don't have.

I don't think that letting you put a room or apartment number is the same thing as advertising that they will deliver to the door. By that same logic it would be false advertising to allow you to list a person's name, but not individually hand out packages to the correct people.

It's all the same company; Fedex accepted it for shipment in my state but charged me less than half of what they already knew they'd charge for me to pick it up. In fact, when I said I'd rather just have it returned to sender, they said they'd charge me for that, too (and actually more than the original shipment.)

> by that same logic it would be false advertising to allow you to list a person's name, but not individually hand out packages to the correct people

That's literally what you're paying for if you're shipping to an individual and not a company.

They knew the rules, because they'd set the rules and they were shipping to themselves.

The hotel and the on-site FedEx office both confirmed they had an agreement where FedEx would deliver 'last mile'.

In this case, however, FedEx was the "mailroom", so it can insert itself as a middleman into the convention center shipping.

The hotel and the on-site FedEx office (which was really rude to me) both confirmed they had an agreement where FedEx would deliver 'last mile' (probably literally).

And a bottle of water and large M&M's is $15 at Mandalay Bay.

I'm waiting for my plane to takeoff for Vegas now (weather delay). There's a 32 pack of water in my free checked bag for this reason.

I'm from Phoenix, everyone just carries a refillable water bottle here, I never leave home without it :)

I started using one most of the time this year, but I couldn't remember if bottle refill stations are prevalent on the strip.

The only nice thing I can say about Vegas is that I never had trouble walking up to a business from the sidewalk, asking for a cup of water and getting it for free. I think they didn't want me dropping dead from the heat right in front of them, that'd probably be bad for business.

Granted, that was 15 years ago and things may have changed. If I were made to go back, I'd bring one, maybe two, reusable water bottles and count on filling it myself in my hotel room.

Stock up at the Whole Foods on the strip near the airport! I pick up my car at LAS, stop at the Whole Foods (which also has amazon package delivery), and then drive to my hotel. There's also a Total Wines and a few good restaurants in that mall (Town Square); that and Spring Mountain Road (Chinatown) are the best things about visiting Las Vegas.

If anything changed, it's worse now. Any hotel which has an outsourced package delivery to an "in house business center run by (franchisee of ups/fedex) is generally going to be horrible for package delivery. I generally do Amazon locker (for Amazon), or pick up at a nearby non-hotel fedex/ups location instead, even if it requires taking an uber to it (although I have a rental car in almost all of these cases).

That's definitely what I'm going to do in the future.

Obviously, the real reason why they do this is so that FedEx can get in on that millions-upon-millions of dollars in convention center shipments (as you know, convention centers charge thousands of dollars for literally everything, even wifi or bottles of water.)

>If I could, I would send my bags by almost any other means than "checking" the bag with the airline

On the other hand, I shipped luggage internationally once because I was doing outdoor stuff after a somewhat complicated business trip. It ended up stuck in customs and I'd have had to go there during the week to retrieve it, which because of the nature of the trip I was unable to do.

I try very hard not to check luggage but if you're doing certain types of activities, that's pretty much impossible to do.

In this case, I had an inkling in advance there might be a problem so I was careful to get as much critical stuff as possible either on me or in carry-on, I bought a bunch of stuff at a good outdoor store at the city I arrived in, and was able to borrow a few things.

ADDED: I'd just add that the airlines have a well-developed system that's usually pretty reliable about getting your bag to a carousel where you can pick it up. I'm less confident about FedEx or whoever getting it to you at a random hotel.

> If I could, I would send my bags by almost any other means than "checking" the bag with the airline.

I recently took my monitor with me to Spain, it’s a big 34 inch curved screen that I’ve had for about three years (I bought the monitor in my country in the beginning of 2020).

When I left Spain I sent the monitor home to my country. I used my girlfriends name as sender and her parents address in Spain as return address, in case anything happened causing it to be sent in return.

By accident they ended up marking the value of the package as €4000. I had told them it was worth about €400 which is probably more than I would even be able to actually sell the monitor for.

Anyway. The package arrives to my mother in my country. And she goes to get it.

The postal office told her to pay almost €1000 in toll fees.

I had originally paid about €700 for the monitor when it was new. And due to a mistake with the label they want more in toll fees for my three year old monitor than it had even cost when it was new.

I contacted the postal services customer support and explained the situation. They told me to submit proof of the value of the monitor and such, and that they will help me. Fortunately I originally bought it online and still have my login details for the store I bought it from, and from there I was able to grab screenshots of the original order.

This was on Friday. Hopefully they will be able to resolve it, so that my mother can get my monitor for me without crazy toll fees.

This experience has left me uncertain if I ever want to send anything valuable home by mail again. We will see how it plays out.

what would be the value of a monitor that is not working, regardless of the fact that its missing one or two easily replacable, but critical parts, that happen to be in easy reach?

You could probably claim it was only worth like €50 or something in that case.

I think I see what you are suggesting :p but I think it is better to not sabotage your own monitor before shipping it somewhere.

> Every other service has a legal obligation to deliver the goods, or at least try to get my bag to the destination, rather than pawn it off on a fly-by-night local delivery van service.

Isn't subcontracting to a locally delivery service trying to get your bag to its destination? Should we expect airlines to also run a last mile delivery service?

>> Should we expect airlines to also run a last mile delivery service?

Yes. They should be responsible for bags until delivery. If their subcontractor loses my bag I don't want to hear that the airline isn't responsible. The airline should know where my bag is and when it is expected to be delivered. I don't much care who actually drives the van, but they should be under the control and direction of the airline. Give it to USPS for all I care. At least USPS tracks packages.

>>I would rather spend an extra four hours sleeping in the back of a C-130<<

i miss those days sometimes

There is no more comfortable flight than a bench made out of webbing, a lunch in a cardboard box, a pair of ear defenders, and absolutely zero in-flight announcements. Only words I heard the entire flight were: "Sir, wake up. We are on the ground now."

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