How PackRight Estimates Airline Baggage Fees

The airline’s booking flow and published contract of carriage control if this estimate differs.

What PackRight estimates

• Checked bag fees for the first, second and additional bags on the fare you pick.
• Whether a personal item and a carry-on are included with that fare.
• Whether your bag fits the airline’s published size allowance. Bags are compared in any orientation: both your measurements and the allowance are sorted longest to shortest before comparison, so a bag is not called oversized just because you entered its sides in a different order.
• Whether a selected airline credit card waives a bag fee, for the cardholder and up to that card’s companion limit.
• Weight against the airline’s published checked-bag limit.

What we do not estimate

• Anything we cannot source. If PackRight has no sourced fee for a bag, it says Not priced and leaves it out of the total rather than guessing. Your real cost will be higher than a total that contains unpriced items.
• Dynamic pricing. Some airlines price bags by route, by fare and by when you buy them. A single figure cannot represent that, and we say so on those records.
• Elite status. Only credit-card benefits are modelled. Status is a separate eligibility system with its own tiers and itinerary rules, and mixing the two into one control would be misleading.
• International itineraries, interline and codeshare bags, military and mobility exemptions, sports and musical equipment, pets, and lounge or bundled fare products.
• Taxes, currency conversion, and any airport-specific charge.

Airline policy sources

Every airline, fare and card record carries the URL of the policy page it came from, the scope it applies to, its status, and the date a reviewer last checked it. Those details appear next to the figures on each airline page and under every estimate.

Numbers that no airline publishes as a single figure are handled separately. They are stored as named assumptions, shown with an “Assumption” badge, and listed under the estimate that used them. An assumption is a planning aid, never a quoted price.

How card benefits are applied

Selecting a card applies its waivers to the first passenger, then to as many further passengers as that card’s companion limit allows, in itinerary order. A card that waives only the first checked bag does not waive the second. Card terms are set by the issuer, change without notice, and usually require the fare to be booked on that card. Confirm eligibility with your issuer.

When fees can differ

• You buy the bag at the airport rather than during booking.
• Your itinerary includes a partner or international segment.
• The aircraft or route has a smaller bin or a different allowance.
• The airline changed its policy after our last review.
• Your bag is measured with wheels and handles included, and ours was not.

How often we review data

Records are due for review every 30 days. A record that has never been verified, or whose check is older than that, is labelled Review pending wherever it appears, and any estimate built on it carries the same label. We do not make savings claims from a record in that state.

PackRight currently models 8 US airlines. Every record is presently marked “Review pending”: these figures were carried over from an earlier build and have not yet been checked against the airline sources listed beside them. Treat the tool as a planning guide until those checks are done.

How to report an error

If a figure here does not match what your airline shows, we want to know. Email [email protected] with the airline, the fare, what PackRight showed and what the airline showed, and a link if you have one. Corrections are recorded with the source and the date of the change.

Last updated 29 August 2026.