Looks like they have one of the best bike policies. No charge if it's bagged up and weighs under 23kg. Apparently if it's over that, there's an extra discretionary £30 charge.
Makes taking my own bike to the USA a simple choice, vs renting at $60 per day plus tax.
Anyone been charged the £30 excess, I reckon my bike + chainreaction bag, plus some padding is going to be over 23kg.
Bag = 6 or 7 kg
Bike = 15kg (but I can take the pedals, rotors, grips off maybe)
cardboard inner = 1kg or so
padding = a bit more...
(which makes the 23kg amount a bit of a tease)
Yes Virgin are about the only airline left who take bikes for free. I've taken bikes with them many times, mostly to San Francisco but also to Vegas and NY. Both road and mtb in either a soft chain reaction bag or hard scicon case.
It's very straight forward and I've never had any issues or extra charges. They can't weigh the bikes at Heathrow T3 (don't know about Gatwick) as the scales are too small. Coming back they never seem to weigh it either, just tag it and take it off to the oversize desk.
Sounds good, might even squeeze some tools into the bag in that case
I've done it loads of times too
rigid case, which makes 23kg v difficult - sturmey's right about the weighing but every year I chicken out in case they've refitted the check-in
couple of heavy bits (cassette, chain, pedals) in my case and off we go
(bear in mind that US customs WILL open your bike bag, as they can't x-ray things that big. They may be able to close it up again, but you might also get some half-arsed attempt like this
[url= http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2871/9094879422_38db602120.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/23823661@N05/9094879422/ ]2012-08 045[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/23823661@N05/ ]scaredypants[/url], on Flickr
(one year they let me go back and reseal it myself but told me it wasn't allowed normally)
Nice! I've had padlocks forced open by them too, my fault I guess.
Have used them to fly to Japan.
Way out was no issue, as has been said, they can't weight it at Heathrow and it was packed with other stuff as well as the bike.
On the way back they did weigh it and I got an excess baggage fee of about £30 or whatever it was in yen at the time.
Semi-rigid bag and looked brand new at the end of the trip, no signs of the usual baggage handler abuse.
I took a fixie through with Virgin just in a very large plastic bag (from Wiggle).
If you go that route then you save 6-7 kg of bike bag, but you'll want to remove fragile bits of your bike (rear mech, rotors, fancy carbon brake levers).