Today we leave for Baltimore. Peg, Joaquin, Brendan, and myself will be flying down and meeting up with aDam and Janine (the Canadians) and Brenna, Ruth, and Mas (the upstate New York contingent) and will be attending Otakon tomorrow. Otakon is the largest anime convention on the east coast. Approximately 23,000 attendees each year. Quite large.
I don’t leave for about another hour and ten minutes, though. Naturally I’m spending that time furiously packing my luggage since didn’t do enough of that last night. Unfortunately, with the economy the way it is and the gas prices the way they are, it was brought to my attention this week that airlines (even more of them now) are still charging for checked in baggage. We’ll be flying AirTran. I had Joaquin look up what the policy is and he found this website, airfarewatchdog.com.
AirTran is charging US$20 for a second piece of luggage to check in. Thats US$40 for both ways. This means I’m not bringing a second piece of luggage. This also means that I can’t bring the wooden sword that is part of my costume since the tube I carry it in is too large to be a carry on and would be considered a second checked item. The sword is the most recognizable part of my costume and is really what other people see and immediately associate with my character. I would categorize this as ‘sucking big time’.
The sad thing is, looking at that chart, AirTran appears to charge the least of any of the carriers, while American Airlines makes no misconceptions as they tell you to grab your ankles and think of Christmas.
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