One of the reasons to travel back to Haven this week is to bring back some things that I left behind. The plan was to travel there with just carry on, acquire two cheap full-size suitcases within regulation dimensions, stuff them with every ounce of the allowed 50KG of weight each, and then travel back with checked luggage.<\/p>\n
This plan felt a little nebulous in my mind as I’m flying on two different airlines (Air Canada to Toronto to CDMX, then Aeromexico to M\u00e9rida) and I booked my trip as three separate legs. I started having nightmares of reaching one of my connection points and being told that even if I was ready to pay for the extra bags, I couldn’t bring them with me or of having to pay separately at each connection point, to reach an astronomical cost that would make my plan foolish.<\/p>\n
So that was enough of that overthinking. I went to Air Canada’s website this morning, got their number to call them within Mexico, and reached a very helpful agent who spoke good English. Yes, of course I could have dealt with this in Spanish if I had to, and planned to if I had to follow up with a call to Aeromexico, but when I’m calling my national airline, I expect service in one of my mother tongues. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
After explaining the situation, I got some bad news and I got some great news.<\/p>\n
The bad news is, yep, I have to manually transfer my bags at each destination. So land in Toronto and have to get them through customs and on their way to CDMX, but I can do that at the start of the very long layover so at least I’m not having to deal with them all that time. Get to CDMX and I have to go from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2 with them, which sounds like it will be “fun.”<\/p>\n
That was all the confirmation I needed to not overdo the carry-on luggage. I thought of traveling with my nearly empty small carry-on suitcase so I could fill that too, but that’s going to be way too much for me to handle on mostly just long enough connections. So I bought myself a backpack this weekend that will be bigger than the one I took to Europe and will use that plus my pink tote<\/a> as my carry-on items. I’ll still have lots of room in the backpack for the return trip, but at least both bags will leave me with free hands.<\/p>\n Now, the great news is that the way I booked my tickets, even though I did each leg separately, it shows as one itinerary from Regina to M\u00e9rida, not individual trips. So that means just one fee for checking baggage, paid in Regina and good for Aeromexico too! So only 80CAD plus tax!!! I had explored the option of buying non-economy tickets to get included checked luggage, but then those return flights went from just over $300CAD to over $1,000CAD. This is a bargain!<\/p>\n Another bit of good news is my first leg en route to Canada is considered domestic. So since I’m flying out at 8:42AM with no checked luggage, I can get to the airport around 6:45AM instead of around 5:30, meaning I can leave at about 6:20 instead of 5:10. That’s going to make quite a difference! Yes, I’m that close to the airport — it’s within city limits and there’s no traffic at that hour. I booked a car (through Cabify) already to take me there and feel oh-so-fancy. \ud83d\ude42 It’s going to be only about $100 to get the airport, but the return trip will be around $400 as I will have to use the taxis at the airport. Highway robbery, but it is what it is.<\/p>\n