Hacker News Reader

Comment by matwood | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I just fly a lot, but baggage fees are pretty clear along with limits.

But they don’t appear on price comparison sites. So if you’re shopping around and you see a Delta flight for $300 and a Spirit flight for $200 you have no idea which is actually cheaper. Every time I’ve flown Spirit the baggage price has been variable (based on miles flown maybe? No idea) so it’s not like comparison sites could even add it if they wanted to.

I don't know which sites you use, but Kayak and Google Flights both let you input the number of checked and carry-on bags you're traveling with and include those fees in the comparison.

Right, and they don’t take into account things like “my credit card gives me 2 free checked bags on United”. So in the end it’s still too opaque to really compare prices easily.

Sounds like the complication is your credit card, not the airlines or comparison websites.

Google flights lets you add bags and shows/include baggage fees.

For Spirit, baggage fees are also clearly listed here: https://www.spirit.com/optional-services

> But they don’t appear on price comparison sites

Depends on the website. Skyscanner include that kind of thing, as well as seat pitch, if food is included, etc.

Airlines like Spirit and Frontier are just the "bus fare". Want anything extra, like a carry on bag? You'll have to pay for it. Learned my lesson, will just book Southwest or similar next time.

Why would that be the airlines problem? The price comparison sites make their money off a different model. Maybe the sites need to fix their logic.

It’s irritating but it’s not the airlines responsibility to support the comparison sites.

Why does it need to be their problem to matter? It's an annoyance, and it can cause enough friction to stop potential customers.

Right, but if you’re not a frequent flier and are trying to just plan a trip, the amount of extra work it takes to determine the actual round trip price (incl. baggage fees) for several different airline is prohibitive.

Many people just pick the cheapest price on cheap tickets or something (which is usually spirit. They famously charge so much for baggage that they end up being more expensive than other airlines)

Don't most of the airfare searching sites let you include your baggage situation into your query? Kayak does, at least. I just assumed the rest did as well.

Last I checked cheaptickets doesn’t. I’ve never used kayak. I just stick with a single airline nowadays.

I don’t fly a lot any more but I haven’t found it to be confusing at all. Even the price comparison websites make it easy to select a number of bags.

I don’t understand these comments about how it’s confusing. It’s all quite clear.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com