Travel Tip: How to minimize baggage expenses

In order to minimize baggage expenses when you travel, you should know how many kilos of baggage you would like to bring or if you want to travel light (hand carry only/no checked baggage). If you have baggage that you need to check in, avail Prepaid Baggage offered by certain airlines like Cebu Pacific/TigerAirways and Zestair/AirAsia upon purchase of the ticket/s.

What is Prepaid Baggage?

Prepaid Baggage is a service offered by certain airlines like Zestair/AirAsia, Cebu Pacific/TigerAirways and Philippine Airlines wherein they allow passengers to pay their excess baggage in advance at cheaper price for passengers traveling both domestic and international. If you don’t have baggage you can choose “no checked baggage” which means you can just take 7kgs as hand-carry for domestic flights.

Why you need to avail Prepaid Baggage?

Because if you're going to pay your baggage at the airport upon check in less than 4 hours before the time of departure, you’ll going to pay P150 per 1 kilo for domestic flights.  Example, if you carry 15 kilos with you at the airport without availing prepaid baggage upon purchase of your ticket then you'll going to pay P2,250 (15 kgs x P150). But if you avail prepaid baggage upon purchase of your ticket, you will just pay P170.00 for 15kgs (Zestair/AirAsia) and P224 for 15kgs (Cebu Pacific/TigerAir). They also have other available standard rates for heavier baggages.

Note: You can still purchase prepaid baggage at the airport more than 4 hours before the time of departure.

Knowing how many kilograms of baggage you’ll going to bring on a travel is really indispensable and you can save a lot of money. If you purchase a ticket, you must avail a prepaid baggage, if there are things that you want to bring that needs to be checked in like for instance, dried fish or other smelly foods  and also, if you are sure that you'll be carrying more than 7 kilos. All you have to do is tell the ticketing agent that you want to avail a prepaid baggage.

There are still people who don't know about this specially those who are working abroad. That's why they spent a lot  of money for baggage fees at the airport when they come home.