Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
This is extremely good advice. I have seen passengers thinking that if they are obnoxious that the ticket agents will get scared of them and succumb. I however have had the best luck getting better seats for free by being as pleasant as I possibly can be.
I got a cheap pocket sized luggage scale shipped from China on ebay for less than $10. Took a month to arrive, but it is a very useful thing to have for travel. I try to have my luggage 2 pounds lighter than the limit, rest of my weight is in carry on bag.
I also take a photo of my luggage before I check it, when you are trying to describe your luggage to someone at your destination airport, it helps to show what it looks like on your camera display.
I've had the check-in people drop the charges all together, or reduce them, when I turned up before they were busy and was as nice as can be. The check-in person has quite a bit of power. They can also choose to charge you a lot more if they want.
We've discovered in our travels that some airports have weigh scales for travellers to use to check the weight of their luggage ... Heathrow is one. So even if you don't have your own scales, you might be able to find some in the airport.
And good idea about the photos.