Word: bags
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Packing for Thailand usually doesn't involve more than throwing sunblock, insect repellent and a T shirt or two into your bag. But if you're headed to Khao Yai National Park, the country's oldest nature reserve, there's one more advisable piece of gear: a Stetson hat. Three hours' drive northeast of Bangkok, this forest and grassland plateau counts as Thailand's cowboy country. Locals work the nearby ranches, occasionally dressed in Wild West outfits likely inspired by American soldiers who passed through during R&R from the Vietnam...
...Complaint: Andres Felipe Alonso-Rodriguez flew on Ryanair last August from Valencia, Spain, to Milan. At check-in, the scale at the airline counter showed that his bag weighed 12 kg (26.5 lb.), 2 kg above the limit for a carry-on, so Alonso-Rodriguez was forced to check it. The cost: 20 euros. That's almost one euro for every one of his names...
Alonso-Rodriguez didn't think his bag was that back-breaking, and he says the airport scale registered 1 kg (2.2 lbs.) even with nothing on it. When he arrived at his destination, he weighed his bag on another scale and found that it was under the 10-kg limit. Good thing Oprah doesn't have Ryanair's scales, or she'd be more depressed than usual...
...discovered they were all off-kilter. In November, a check of 810 scales at New York City's La Guardia and J.F.K. airports found that 102 of them had not been calibrated correctly. Of the defective scales, 28 belonged to American Airlines, which charges some of the steepest bag fees in the industry: $15 to check the first bag, $25 for the second and $100 for the third; to check overweight (over 50 lb.) bags costs $50 to $100 per piece...
Macsata says the best thing to do if you think you've been wrongly charged for a piece of weighty baggage is to keep your cool. Don't lash out at the airline representative. You can ask to have your bag weighed on a different scale, but if you still get hit with a fee, pay it with a credit card, then call your credit-card company and let them know you plan to dispute the charge. You should also file a grievance with the airline...