Airlines baggage rules and charges can put you in a spin even before you travel

School’s out and summer holidays beckon. And for those of us looking to travel abroad, that brings the inevitable frustrations of getting to airports, queueing for everything and increasingly complex luggage charges.

Things were so much simpler back in the day: you paid for your flight and it was all in – ticket, seat, getting on the plane and luggage. Now you’ve got to juggle seating preferences, prices and rules depending on whether you are travelling with young ones or not; priority boarding charges to get on to a plane minutes before your fellow passengers without whom the plane cannot take off anyway; and baggage charges that, depending on the airline, depend on weight, size, destination, ticket type and time of purchase.

The optional fees section on Ryanair’s website, for instance, runs to seven printed pages. Meanwhile, Aer Lingus has four separate and generally wildly different ticket prices, each with its own T&Cs.

And for all those savvy travellers looking to buy a carry on bag that meets airline rules on size, think again. Different airlines have different rules on the maximum size of bags – yes, even the two main airline serving the Irish market. Worse still, Aer Lingus has different carry-on rules depending on the route.

Let’s start with those carry-on bags. In general, both Aer Lingus and Ryanair will permit you to take a 10kg bag on board with you but they have different permitted dimensions. Aer Lingus says the bag can be up to 55cm tall by 40cm wide and 24cm deep. But try to bring that on your Ryanair flight and you could be in trouble.

It says the permitted dimensions are 55cm x 40cm x 20cm. It’s not wildly different but, as Ryanair is more inclined to use its bag size checker at boarding gates to ensure you are not gaming its rules, those 4cm of depth could lead to a lot of unnecessary stress and cost.

If you have to put the bag in the hold because it does not pass the boarding gate check, it could cost you an additional €46.

And that is on top of what you will have paid for the privilege of bringing it on board in the first place. Both airlines will allow you bring a handbag or laptop bag on board for free – although again the dimensions vary. At Aer Lingus, it must be no larger than 25cm x 33cm x 20cm, while Ryanair is happy with a slight more generous 25cm x 40cm x 20cm.

But for the right to bring on board your 10kg case, Ryanair requires you to pay for priority boarding. This, it says, can cost anywhere between €6 and €36 per passenger per flight, depending on your route and the dates on which you are travelling. Presume that you will pay more in the peak summer season.

And if you wait until closer to the time of your flight to opt for priority, the price goes up to between €20 and €38.

Over at Aer Lingus, it gets even more complicated. The airline used to allow all passengers take their 10kg bag on board but it changed that policy a few years ago.

If you are opting for their “economy” fare, which they call Saver, it does not give you the right to take your 10kg bag on board. However, if you pay an additional €9.99 per bag per flight, you can do so. But, if you have not done so, don’t take the chance of turning up at the gate with the bag and trying to sweet-talk your way on board as the bag will be put in the hold and you will pay an extra €35 for the privilege.

If you are on one of their other fares – Plus, Advantage or AerSpace – it will include that 10kg bag but you’re paying anyway for that in higher fares.

As an example, I looked at the price of a flight to Madrid midweek at the back end of June. It is not meant to be necessarily representative but just for illustration.

The Saver fare was €68.64 before you pay for your 10kg bag. The next fare – Plus – would cost you €126.64, or almost twice the price. Other than the carry-on 10kg bag, that fare entitles you to a free checked-in 20kg bag, the ability to book a seat in advance and the option of going on standby for an earlier flight.

Step up again to Advantage and you will pay €141.64. It is not a lot more but all you are getting extra for that is lounge access if that airport has the facility and fast-track security which promises to get you through security in 10 minutes but applies only at Dublin Airport

Finally, you can go the whole hog and opt for the AerSpace fare. For this you get the additional perk of priority boarding and access to a front-row seat with the middle seat kept free and dedicated storage for your things. But on this flight, that will cost you €352.64, so that middle seat is not really free at all . . . you’re essentially paying a €211 premium for it.

To further wreck your head, if you are flying on Aer Lingus regional on routes to regional airports in England, Scotland, the Isle of Man, Jersey or Brittany, your carry-on limit is 7kg and the bag dimensions must not exceed 48cm x 33cm x 20cm.

When it comes to checked-in baggage, things can get even more complicated.

Ryanair will charge you anywhere between €11.99 and €29.99 per person per flight leg for a 10kg checked bag if you take that option at the time you make the booking depending on route and date. Try to add that bag to your booking at a later date or at the airport and the price goes up to between €20 and €38. And doing nothing before you arrive with the bag at the boarding gate will cost €46.

Aer Lingus does not charge for one 10kg checked-in bag even on its Saver fare.

If you are looking at the 20kg suitcase, Aer Lingus will include this in its fare structure outside of the Saver fare. If you are on Saver and want to bring a case that size, its cost will depend on where you are travelling to and when you book at bag.

Do it online and you will pay €25 for what the airline considers a short haul route, €40 for a mid-route and €55 for long haul. You will pay a €2 surcharge to those rates if you are unsure whether you will need a big case and wait to add the bag until you check in online. If you do it by contacting the airline’s call centre or waiting until you get to the airport, the premium rises to €10.

Aer Lingus also insists that the dimensions of the case – its height plus its width and its depth – cumulatively do not come to more than 158cm.

Ryanair appears to be more generous in its dimensions but it will also penalise you more heavily for not making your mind up at the time of the booking.

It says the charge for adding the 20kg bag at the time you make your online booking will range from €18.99 to €59.99 depending, as before, on the time of year you are flying and the destination. Add that bag later and it will cost you between €44.99 and €59.99, or €70 if you wait until you get to the airport.

And make sure you don’t overstuff those bags. Ryanair charges €9 a kilo for excess baggage weight (if notified and paid for before you get to the airport) or €11 a kilo if you do nothing until you get to bag drop. Aer Lingus is much the same, charging €10 per kilo for excess weight on its European routes.

It’s a minefield as you can see. Given that all those rates are per person or per case depending on when you sign up, and for each leg of your flight, and it is clear that the charges can fundamentally alter the cost of your holiday travel and the “value for money” of flying with one airline over the other.

It pays to do your homework well in advance before locking down those summer plans. But, at this point, that may need to wait until the next time. Bon voyage.

You can contact us at OnTheMoney@irishtimes.com with personal finance questions you would like to see us address. If you missed last week’s newsletter, you can read it here.