Flying home from Kavala

[vinnie caira]

charging for excess baggage is nothing new. the airlines have being charging for a few years whether its from britain or greece. it says on your ticket your allowance, eg thomsons 20kgs plus 5kgs hand luggage which must not be over a certain size. with thomsons you can pre buy extra weight allowance 5kgs £15. so if you are intending to bring lots of things home this is the best thing to do in my opinion. again its nothing new the extra security, you cant bring liquids, creams etc in your hand luggage. i can understand peoples indignation at the extra cost and no doubt the poor old thomsons reps get it in the neck, but at the end of the day the rules are there in black and white. regards vinnie

[Selebian]

I agree Vinnie

We usually weigh our cases on the bathroom scales before we go then we have a good idea what they weigh to come back. You could also try weighing full bottles at home before you go. Anyone wanting to bring honey,olive oil, booze etc home which they have bought in resort just needs to put it in the suitcase. We usually wrap bottles in the beach towels and pad them well in the middle of the case. Never had a problem yet (touch wood).

As has been said you can also buy liquids airside but I know a lot of us want to help the shopkeepers in the resorts. They have to make a living in a few short months.

Yiamass, Jean

[Curly]

Hi

We came home via Thessaloniki recently and had Olive oil in our hand luggage. The girl at check in said it had to be in a wooden box! Needless to say we couldn't get one in the airport!! After lots of negotiating she said we could put it in our luggage which we did.My suggestion is put it in your checked in luggage - no one will be the wiser!!

[mirmingi]

hi
we returned from Thassos to UK very shortly after 9/11, i was very wary of what we could bring back - specially with hand luggage, but my Greek partner inisisted on bringing his home made tsipouro, olive oil and black olives by hand. Needless to say it was ok going from Kavala to Athens, but in Athens nice airline lady told him it was "mono ouso" (ie she knew it was rocket fuel) having taking a whiff of it - in the good old sprite bottle . Landing in UK no probs, just wandered through to exits etc, I do think all "official" bodies have just gone hypo and that has made the Tour Companies make us an easy "excuse" for extra vigilance, ergo - slam on the extra penalties etc .

[MrChairman]

Hi Everyone,

Excuse me for sounding a little bit stupid regarding excess baggage and liquids/food, but after last years fiasco at the airports I think its up to all of us to either check with the airport or tour company before hand. We all know that there is a limit to what we can carry onto a plane (usually 20kg + 5kg hand luggage) so keep to the limits. Regarding liquids where have you all been for the last 12 months - NO LIQUIDS IN HAND LUGGAGE.

As regards to in flight meals, dont complain about the quality they have been crap for as long as I can remember. We all come back year after year, complain about them year after year, and do nothing about them year after year. Lets face it on average we are looking at a 3-4 hour flight, and if we cant manage with a pack of sandwiches for 3-4 hours its time we stopped flying.

The rules are quite easy to follow
1. keep to the weight limit
2. No liquids in hand luggage
3. (Optional) Dont order an in flight meal

We all know that if we insist on overloading the cases we could very well get charged for it. So DONT do it.

Happy Holidays On Thassos

Regards

Mr Chairman

[ManiAC]

Perfect Mr Chairman!

Your words should printed out on quality paper, laminated and posted in every travel agents in the UK.
Mind you, for a lot of folks, all this discussion is part of the fun in travelling to Greece, (and other places, but why they would want to do that beats me).
My only whinge on the subject is that as usual the moneymakers want make even more. What are the roadside sellers going to do with all their stock? Sell it off cheap to the airports probably.

[Island Bound]

We've just returned having flown with BA via Thessaloniki. Yes, it was a bit further to travel- BUT:

we got flexible dates- we chose a 9 day stay to mke up for the travelling

A more generous 23kg checked baggage allowance

Seats booked together for free, as we travelled with children- we then checked in online & moved the seats to exactly where we wanted them.

In flight meal & a cuppa were included in the price- these were perfectly pallatable (actually the tea was top notch!)

AND the flights were the cheapest we could find anyway!

[jacqui]

That's good to hear, we're doing LHR - Thessaloniki on Tuesday morning. BA have been cheaper two years running *last year to Athens* and Easyjet is a bit of a squeeze anyway!