The Disappearing Bag Fee

I know it has been a good while, but, hey, its my blog, and, if you didn't already know this, wizards, especially crabby ones, are very busy finding things to complain about.  That is what inspired this new entry.  I travelled the airlines over the past few weeks, and the expierence left me far less than satisfied.

There were delays, disgruntled passengers, and I sat by someone whose smell of stale cigarettes and body odor was bad enough to make maggots gag.  However, my ranting digresses.  The real rant I want to post is the mystery of the disappearing bag fee, or, as I have subtitled it, airline stupidity.

Yes, I know... what else is new.  Well, I compacted all of my clothing, using secrets known only to wizards, into a bag that would pass all of the requirements for a carry-on item.  My reasoning, as you can bet, is that I am a cheap son-of-welsh-woman.  As such, I refused to pay the exhorbitant $25.00 fee for checking a bag.  So, I make it through the warm hands of airport security, and I am waiting impatiently at my gate when the airline employees (I think of them more as zookeepers) make an announcement...

"Our flight is very full.  We will check any carry-ons to your final destination for free."

Suddenly there is this mad rush of people, who are carrying massive bags that should have been checked in the first place, to check a $25.00 bag for free.  I also took advantage of it, but c'mon!  What is the airline thinking!  If they had offered it to begin with (say check 1 bag in for free, 2nd bag for $25.00, etc.), the overstuffed bins above all of our heads would not be an issue.  I liked the idea but found my inner crab infuriated by the bass-ackward thought process of the airlines.  Now, the zookeepers have trained the animals to simply bring more un-carry-on-able bags in hopes of having them checked for free.  Grrrrrr... annoying!