Checked bag fees have climbed sharply over the past decade, and Southwest’s exit from free bags closed the door on one of the last holdouts. For some routes, sending luggage ahead of you is starting to look like the smarter move.
There’s a particular indignity in packing a bag, then immediately calculating whether it’s cheaper to check it, cram everything into a personal item, or simply leave something behind. It’s a calculation that’s gotten more punishing in recent years, and an unlikely contender has emerged as a third option: shipping the bag itself, ahead of you, rather than carrying it through the airport at all.
The case for paying attention now is in the numbers. According to data shared with luggage shipping service Send My Bag, airline baggage fee revenue has climbed more than 200 percent since 2010, reaching over $7 billion in 2024. Southwest’s decision last year to abandon its long-standing free-bags policy removed one of the few remaining holdouts among major US carriers, leaving fewer ways to avoid the fee structure most airlines have settled into.
The fees themselves vary more than most travellers realise. Many carriers still include a free checked bag on long-haul international main-cabin fares, but basic economy tickets are where the exceptions live: United covers one bag on most transpacific basic economy routes but charges from $45 elsewhere, Delta extends the same courtesy to parts of Asia while charging on other international legs, and American offers a free bag on select routes including Australia, New Zealand, and (for tickets bought from April 23) parts of Asia, India, and Qatar — with charges starting at $50 outside those exceptions.
Weight limits add another layer: most economy tickets cap checked bags around 50 pounds, and Delta, for one, charges $100 for being even a pound over.
Shipping sidesteps that calculation entirely, at a cost. Send My Bag’s pricing for a US-to-UK shipment starts at $109 for up to 33 pounds and $179 for up to 66 pounds, arriving within four to five business days, or two to three days on the express tier. Routes to Japan run slightly higher, from $119 for the smaller weight bracket.
Unsurprisingly, the busiest corridors mirror where Americans already travel most: the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, and Japan, with the company also reporting a 29 percent rise in customers shipping for relocation rather than holiday travel — golf bags, skis, and bicycles included.
None of this displaces the suitcase for a long weekend. But for a longer international stay, a move, or a haul that would otherwise mean two overweight bags and a testy conversation at check-in, it’s worth running the numbers before defaulting to what the airline charges. The fee structure isn’t going back to where it was, and for the right trip, neither does the bag need to.
Amanda O’Brien is the creator and editor of The Boutique Adventurer. She has visited 80 countries and is a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers as well as the IFTWTA. She is passionate about wine had has just completed Level 3 of the WSET. Born in Australia, she lives in London.