Trying to make sense of bike on British Airways

23kg for std tickets as part of std ticket checked bag 1x upto 23kg.  if over 23kg - then £65 extra each way, just pay at the checking desk

If you go for better ticket then you get 2x 32kg

you want to take two checked bags?

They used to have a specific sports equipment option, do they no longer do that?

When I've flown to Geneva with bike on BA I've gone business class.  The flights were obviously a bit more (not huge when I have booked) but you get 2 x 32kg hold bags as standard (and then I've just called them in advance to make sure they know a bike bag is coming) plus lounge entry (man maths means that free food and drink in the business lounges the ticket entitles you to saves a decent chunk of expenditure at the rip off airport outlets) as well as priority boarding, food on plane and no-one in the middle seat.

I suspect what you are reading on the website is that taking a bike is OK (together with the associated £65 excess luggage charge) but the item weight cannot exceed 32kg (like any other excess luggage per item).  Always phone ahead to tell them a bike is coming with you (and have the bike bag / box size to hand for them)as they do reserve the right to not put it on if hold space is tight on the day and you turn up with a big bike bag unannounced.

using their calc max weight per bag is down to type of ticket.

so on Economy extra bag (upto 23kg) is £65 each way if overweight then overweight charge will be applied on top.

you might find if you want to check two bags and one is over 23kg, better to book Business as that gets you 2x32kg.

Cheers, I'm aware that business class get 2x32kg which would do the trick.  However, there's quite a price difference.  If I can take a bike between 23kg nd 32kg for £65 each way, I'm happy.  If that bike cost £130 each way because it's £65 for the 2nd bag and £65 for being over weight, then a business class ticket makes sense.

£130 each way for the bike, compared to £120 round trip for me.  I weight more than 32kg.  Shame I can't just buy a seat for the bike.

Maybe ask BA the question direct on Twitter/X. I keep hearing that large corporations' social media monitors give better answers than any other method of contacting them.

as far as I read it (and just booking some flights myself) than you can add an extra checked bag in economy for £65 each way, but the limit is 23kg.

anything above that for economy is classed as overweight and would incur over weight charge.

You could chance  and see - on what back from Geneva last year got charged £65 for overweight single check bag and then the desk said yon can check another bag if you like all in, but that did not happen on the way out...

or just get all other stuff as hand and check the bike as checked in overweight charge - full face helmet is a pain, but just carried that.

a bike just counts as baggage on ba. it might be cheaper to take 2x23kg bags rather than 1x32kg - if so pop your wheels in a separate bag? My trail bike packed up weighs under 23kg (just) so its ok.

might not be relevent, but ba silver gets everyone on your booking 2x32kg, and if you're flying with someone else it can be worth one of you going business and one going economy and splitting bags.

the normal cheapie economy tickets have no bags at all with them, so make sure you're careful of that

bottom line is if you've 1x23kg bag of clothes you need to pay for bag + excess weight for the other bag

Are Premium Economy tickets available (lower cost than Business) - as I think they also give the 2 x 23Kg bags - we've used this with bikes to USA few years (with some careful packing of the bikes sans pedals/chains).

I did this recently. I just booked an extra bag.

The check in agents put an overweigh Label on it and didn’t charge extra.

it was the old style evoc bike bag.

edit: I booked economy. Amusingly, premium economy was full economy was probably 20% full.

I flew through gatwick and Vancouver.

You could chance  and see – on what back from Geneva last year got charged £65 for overweight single check bag and then the desk said yon can check another bag if you like all in, but that did not happen on the way out…

Geneva have always been ruthless about overweight, I guess because they get so many bikes through there and therefore probably a reasonable percentage of people who haven't booked them as bikes or have tried to game the system in some way.

2x23 not an option for this trip. Had considered only one of us going business class. Suppose we could do one leg each.

I've got nothing to add but I'm keen to know the answer as their website is as useful as a chocolate fire guard regarding the subject and we're planning on flying to Canada with BA next year.

Only been with BA once, split ticket with LATAM. Edinburgh to Heathrow to Sau Paulo to Campo Grande and back.

Cost me £60 to get the bike there (32kg box, economy seat with 23kg allowance) and US$100 to bring it back again.

So your price is probably each way.

Me and my bike box together are well under 100kg and yet all the fat barstewards who weigh far more than that on their own still get to take 23kg for free

Had considered only one of us going business class. Suppose we could do one leg each.

The space on the economy seat is less of an issue if you only have the one

BA have been very difficult to deal with after my flight was cancelled last September - I'm still waiting on them to properly resolve my claim for compensation - personally I'd find another airline

Worrying hearing stories like that, but when the other options are Veuling, easyJet or Ryanair, what do you do?

Worrying hearing stories like that, but when the other options are Veuling, easyJet or Ryanair, what do you do?

FWIW, I've never once had any issues with EasyJet or Ryanair. The one time in recent  years I flew with BA (to Geneva actually) they delivered my bike but my mate's bike ended up on a later flight which necessitated a 3hr wait in the airport until the next flight arrived. That was incredibly annoying and frustrating, especially as we didn't know initially what had happened to it, it took their customer service team quite a while to track it down for him.

EJ and Ryanair, you just play their game, accept that you're paying to be treated like cattle and deal with it. Although Ryanair's extortionate bike carriage fee (£60 e/w) is annoying.

EJ is £45 e/w, Jet 2 is £35 e/w.

Those bike prices seem reasonable as it seems BA will be £130 each way.

We took our bikes as the 23 kg checked luggage allowance (gravel bikes, bike packing kit in cardboard box) last year.

I've flown BA and bikes a fair few times. Just used the 'sports equiptment' option, then on arrival, they put a luggage barcode sticker on it, and send you to oversize.

Not been weighed even once when i've travelled.

Gives me a few safety concerns, as how do they know the laod weight of the plane?

Don’t know about BA but flew LH MUC to MAN in May with a couple of mates. The bike bags were classed as our checked luggage, with the 23kg allowance. One of us had 25kg but they were more concerned about the standard sizing of the bags, as we all had Evocs of various ages they just accepted them in both directions, but another guy with a Scicon was asked about the shape and width of the bar area. Gives more problems when not a cuboid form.

Yes BA will charge more for an economy seat with luggage, and will charge again, separately and each way, for a second bag and for an overweight bag. Lots of solutions suggested, including business class. BA hand luggage is very generous, so could you not just have the bike bag in the hold (with any big liquids) and take your clothes in a cabin bag, and your essentials and valuables in a 'hand bag' as per BA description? Then you only pay if the bike bag is overweight £65 each way. https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/baggage-essentials

Thanks all,  It's for a week in the mountains in November so I'll be taking a lot of cycling kit to cover the possibility of lots of wet days.  Might try stuffing it all in the cabin bag if it was a week of summer road riding though.  Looks like it might end up being business class.  Other providers don't seem to offer very convenient flight times either.

I recently flew with a bike, observing all the weights and linear dimensions of the box, you have to add height, width and depth to not exceed a maximum.  Anyway, not one person checked anything, it was a 6am departure and I was first in the oversize queue.

Not brilliant advice I know, as you are a bit stuck if it doesn't fit.

I wouldn't recommend just showing up to the airport without prebooking the extra baggage. I did that with an extra suitcase of documents (admittedly that's heavy) at the suggestion of my works travel agent...and the airline wanted £2000 for it. They generously knocked it down to £1200 and worked paid for it. I was panicking when I told my boss though...

@Onzadog did you ever work this out? We're at the point of booking flights and as far as I can tell it's £130 each way per person. Why BA can't just do it like EasyJet etc. where you add your bike at time of booking is beyond me.

@fathomer

Some of our party paid £65 Rach way for a 23kg bike in economy as a supplement to their economy seat. They got clothing and some bike parts into the standard 23kg allowance to get the bike close to 23kg. They were a bit over but no one seemed to care but that comes with no guarantee.

I chose business class as my bike is heavier and I wanted to take a lot of kit for maintenance and repairs.

Business class gave me two bags at 32kg, access to the lounge and my bags flew as priority. Watching for the plane as they loaded the bags, it looked like they were struggling to load it all. Nice to know my bags weren't going to get bumped.

The other benefit to business class is that on the way back, they booked me an extra seat free of charge for the ankle I broke before lunch on the first day of the holiday.

Although business class actually saved money over all, it did mean it actually cost more to fly the bike than it did me. Maybe next time I'll try and book the bike a seat of it's own.

@Onzadog thanks. Unfortunately a 2 week trip to Canada will mean a hold bag each and a bike each which will weight around the 30-31kg mark.

And Economy Standard is £450 one way,  Economy Plus £990 & Business £1,900! So still much cheaper to pay the £130 each way.

Yeah, makes sense. I only went to Barcelona

The last time I flew with ba on the Heathrow-Vancouver route, about 6 months ago, I added the bike bag after booking. It was slightly over the maximum weight, but the check in staff didn’t charge me extra, just labeled it accordingly for the handlers.

What did surprise me was that economy plus was much busier than economy, so I got a row to myself in both directions, where as plus was full.

@LAT when you say slightly over the maximum weight, I assume you mean 23kg? And how did you add the bike after, live chat?

You just go into 'manage your booking' after you have booked and add extra baggage.

My bike bag weighed a smidge over 24 and it was no problem

As above. Go to manage booking. There may have been a specific option for adding a bike bag.

If you can’t find the option you are after it may be worth phoning customer service. I have always found getting a human on the phone at ba quite easy. I may have been lucky though.

Bike and bag were around 25kg. It weighed more in London than in Vancouver even though I had less in the bag in London. I’d removed the coil shock and a tyre.

I flew to nice in 2023 for cycling hol and me and a mate stripped our enduro bikes to get the evoc bag down to 23kg. Shock/rotors/pedals/tools/spares in a shared 23kg hold bag.

So we had 3x23kg hold bags between the 2 of us. Cabin bags for clothing

Thanks everyone, sounds easy enough to add it to the booking. No way the bags will be less than 30kg, neither of us travel light! It'll cost what it costs I guess.