Flying out to NZ at the end of November and need to take two bikes with me (long story) in addition to a hold bag. Qatar Airways and Emirates are cheapest on ticket prices, but Qatar want 300 USD per bike, and Emirates seem very vague about how much excess baggage actually costs. Anyone had any issues flying out with Qatar? Or any other airline for that matter…

With BA you can normally get one bike as part of your 20kg allowance.

A few years ago I flew Heathrow to Auckland via LAX. I could take 2x20kg and a bike for free. This was 2010 I think. Flying via the US means that you get better luggage allowance

When I went I flew Air New Zealand via LAX (shithole) for 40Kg allowance.

Flying via the US means that you get better luggage allowance

Airlines set allowance, and it’s not by route.

Avoid LAX!

I’d look at air freight options for the bikes. Once you factor in getting them to and from the airport etc, having them collected and delivered door to door appeals!

Make sure your bike is spotless….

What ChunkyMTB says, I got stern words (& free bike wash) from the customs dudes for slightly dirty tyres.
Emirates allowance is 30kgs, inclusive of bike, bag, equipment etc, which doesn’t leave much remaining for normal luggage.

In my experience it all depends on who you get at the check-in desk – some are by the book & charge £££ for the smallest excess weight; when I last flew in June they didn’t even weigh my bike bag.

Get your bike gear properly insured & freight it there & back much cheaper. It’s a PITA travelling with bike & luggage

We did Emirates in Feb with 1 capra and bare minimals for riding for 6 weeks…. no chance we were under the weight limit but over by 1 or 2 kg… I wouldnt want to take 2 and risk it with them unless paying the extra.

I flew London -> Auckland with Qatar in Feb 2017. I took my bike as part of my 32Kg allowance. Excess baggage on long haul flights can be $100 / kg.

I went to the west coast of Aus on a windsurfing trip and they rumbled my extra 4 kg on the way home. I ended up leaving a windsurfing sail behind as the excess baggage charge was more than the £200 sail.

As has been mentioned. Excess baggage will be cheaper sent via freight.

Make sure your bike is spotless….

+1 I had to take mine out of the box so they could examine it. Same goes for any camping gear.

Look at checking in an extra bag with air NZ

IIRC Emirates is £300 for 5kg. You’d need more than that for two bikes I’d guess. So freight is likely to be cheaper. I saw a card for bagsolo in my LBS recently but looks like they don’t do Aus/NZ due to environmental regulations. New tyres are the way to go. And a forensic bike clean.

Make sure your bike is spotless….
+1 I had to take mine out of the box so they could examine it. Same goes for any camping gear.

…and boots

I flew with China Eastern a couple of years ago. It was a lot cheaper than the alternatives. Bike travel costs were hazy but packed in an Evoc bag I didn’t pay for it in either direction.

Most airlines now bike is park of your checked baggage allowance. For 2 bikes I’d look at shipping one box (I used Transglobal express I think, got 32kg in a bike box for about 2-300) all airlines will clearly publish their excess barges in the baggage section of their website. I paid 35 quid/kg 6 years ago emirates to oz.
Other options are look at premium or business.

Best bike transportation advice I can offer is don’t forget your maxle

Above is all good advice. If Qatar will really let you take 2 bikes in addition to your normal allowance for $600 then that seems like a good deal to me (it’s all relative..). When I’ve looked into air freight in the past it has never been worth it (expensive, won’t insure high value items) but maybe I didn’t look hard enough. Mike seems to have got a good deal ^.

With regards Emirates policy, it is quite hard to follow and differs significantly by route and even by ticket within the same class. Generally though, for economy LHR-AKL, it’s 30kg total, which can be a suitcase or a bike or whatever. Bear in mind that they also limit total luggage volume, which means you can take 2 small suitcases weighing 15kg each but if you take a bike you will only be able to take that one item, regardless of weight, as anything else would take you above the volume limit. Their excess baggage charges are per kg and prohibitively expensive.

Another thing to note is that for flights within NZ they will not take any bag weighing over 23kg. For example, if you fly into Auckland with your 30kg bike bag, spend a couple of nights there then try to fly to Queenstown you will get a flat refusal to check in your bike bag unless you take 7kg of stuff out. You may get away with this if you can check your bags through from UK direct to your final destination but I haven’t tried that.

World cup race teams must spend an absolute fortune in excess baggage…

Yeah just seem emirated have removed their excess charges page but you should be able to go through a booking and do it just cancel when you see the price!!
Simple table for checked
https://www.emirates.com/au/english/before-you-fly/baggage/checked-baggage.aspx
Just need to know which fare your booking
The Qatar price looks good but one of those bikes should be part of your hold allowance really.

For reference with shipping Canyon are doing it for 200AUD/120GBP so anything close to 250 is a very good deal for a regular person.

World cup race teams must spend an absolute fortune in excess baggage…

It’s interesting, the small guys are still doing it light, Trek brought their inflatable tent they use for nationals and all the rest but it was nowhere near the setup for a normal race. Same with SC. Expect a lot to be done on air freight at a bulk rate.

Funnily enough, one of YT Mob’s warm up bikes (a carbon Jeffsy, immaculate, Fox factory and carbon everything) just popped up for sale on facebook in NZ for £2500. Looks like they’ve found a way to limit the return costs…

yeah I have 2x29r Minions after Sunday

If you do fly via the states via Air NZ or Virgin you’ll get a much bigger luggage allowance. You pay whichever way you have to go

Actually the Air NZ excess is about the most resonable going
https://www.airnewzealand.com.au/excess-baggage

Excess and oversized baggage charges (GBP)

International Allowance (ex London Heathrow)
First additional piece: £100
Second additional piece: £150 (i.e. £250 for two)
Third and subsequent additional pieces: £200
Overweight (for bags over 23kg but under 32kg) and oversized items: £100
Reading that it’s 250 quid for an extra 2x23kg Bags (each way) though I’d check witht he call centre before hitting go on that – good options via Singapore too

Emirates have a 30kg allowance per person and will allow a bike as part of that allowance.

https://www.emirates.com/au/english/help/faq/214958/baggage-allowances-for-sports-equipment

I always use them to fly back and forth from NZ – decent planes and entertainment etc

+1 for looking at going premium or business. BA business class was an extra £700 return when I went to Canada, but it meant I got 3x32kg baggage allowance which was only 200 more than the return plus excess baggage for cattle class and 2 bikes…

Emirtates used to be good for baggage but unless you go the cheapest Etihad do 2×32
http://www.etihad.com/en-au/before-you-fly/baggage-information/allowances/
and will link with Air NZ I think…
For Emirates down here you are linking with Qantas so not sure how that works for any NZ internals

Been to Sydney twice.
First was from Birmingham with Emirates, cheapest and nicest but could only take one bike (32kg)
Second from London with Virgin, could take two bikes – they let you take one bag and one piece of sports equipment, it’s just that my bag had another bike in it. It cost me £140 in excess baggage for the round trip, that was to get both bags from the standard weight to the 32kg limit. (2013 prices)
I don’t know if either fly to NZ but would expect similar prices

PS. First trip I was going to be charged AU$300 excess baggage on the return journey. Put some small heavy things, pedals, tools etc in a lunchbox, post office at Sydney airport charged me AU$70 to send them home.

Spotless Bike is an understatement. Any kit that has been in contact with soil / dirt needs to be declared. If you ride with a pack, make sure the mud splashes are off it (Spds / shoes etc).

And if you have a connection/ transfer etc budget some time for clearing these checks before you can proceed. 🙂

The pain in the arse this all is offset by some great riding.

have a look at sendmybag.com – the bikes will take a little longer to get there, but should be much cheaper

I’ve used airNZ to UK and back with two bikes. I was Elite so didn;t pay at all as 3x23kg bags and they took two bikes and bag with no quibbles. And they are really v good (at the pointy end particularly)

Spotless Bike is an understatement.

Aussie customs opened my bike bag to check, first thing out was a brand new wheel with a new tyre on it. They didn’t check anything else 🙂
But yes, they do usually check so make sure everything is clean (and watch for any food too, was OK with packaged gels but the Chinese girl at the desk next to me was having a lot of trouble with several massive bags of dried beans) I don’t know if they are the same if you are just changing there, I never saw my bike on the changes at Dubai/Bangkok

Aussie customs opened my bike bag to check, first thing out was a brand new wheel with a new tyre on it. They didn’t check anything else

Oz and nz are very different, I got asked if it was clean at 6am in Melbourne that was it, always get an inspection in nz. But yeah clean in under the saddle and in the steerer is one of the places they check to see if you bothered.

Could you take one bike and enough spares? Or is it a DH mtb and a road race bike? ;-). Even some spare forks would go under 30kg.

When we visited NZ last year we ended up buying 2nd trail bikes and selling them when we left. Cost £250 for 2 bikes for 3 weeks. Cheaper than getting our own bikes here (without sacrificing our entire luggage).

Currently out here for 2 years so shipped my bike over (took 100 days) and bought the GF an immaculate 2nd hand one here.