As for Easyjet - RAGE!!! I phoned them recently to clarify their policy and three separate people over an hour and a half of telephone calls told me I could take only my board with its bindings attached and my boots in my board bag. I then emailed to confirm this in writing and they changed their mind. I can have anything in my board bag up to 12kg. They don't seem to know themselves what can and can't be taken in which bag. Fools.

Jon1976 - I wasn’t giving you the 3rd degree mate but my point was you’ve obviously travelled a few times with Easyjet so I would have thought you would have read the baggage allowance conditions a few times so if you turn up at the airport with 2 suitcases and a board bag weighing a total of 72 kg surely you would have expected to have to pay some sort of excess charge? Plus Easyjet charge £10 for every kg over the limit so it could have cost you £200, I guess £90 was a bargain.

Yes its frustrating when you get a right wee Hitler at check in who does everything by the book, been there myself and I agree that its unfair that there was more than likely a dozen people or so on that flight who would have got away with extra baggage which you were asked to pay for.

Chaski – No offence taken, I understand people can interpret things different ways but I don’t see whats unclear about under the sporting equipment section…

‘Payment of the additional fee increases your checked-in hold baggage allowance (including additional item) to a maximum weight of 32kgs.’

I can’t really see whats ambiguous about that? You have their one allocated hold bag and the additional bag (in this case board bag) to weight no more than a total of 32kg combined.

Also you said ‘By not always checking, they encourage people to take a chance and end up profiting from it’. If an individual chooses to ignore the weight limits and take a chance its purely a personal choice, theres no conspiracy surely? I’ve done it myself and got away with it and also been stung but that’s the chance you take.

Most do need to improve their customer service and its frustrating when members of staff say different things but if you take the chance and get caught out the airline is perfectly entitled to charge you within the confines of their terms and conditions which are there for all to see so I was just stating I don’t think its fair to say you are being robbed.

BA have a flaw in their system, my dad is a platinum card holder and booked our flights to canada for us

Have flown with Swiss to Geneva and that was a breeze, although you're supposed to only have board, boots and bindings in the bag. BA charge too much nowadays, that was their only saving grace to Europe before.

Hold bag is 20kg (£18 return), Sports bag is 12kg (£18.50 each way). You can have both of them as two separate bags with their individual weight limits, or combine the two as one bag (e.g. board bag) of up to 32kg, for the same cost as having them individually.

If you need extra weight, an additional 20kg hold bag is £18 but all of your hold & sports equipment bags must not exceed 50kg per person - If you're bag sharing then this isn't a problem.

If asked, just say there's 1 board + bindings, 1 set of boots and all of your clothes, they never seem to check.