Southwest Pole Charges

[Bruce Caldwell]

Other alternatives for the Future
If you try to ship as baggage some get through others may not for free you take a chance. IF you can ship the pole ahead of time you can save headaches, see info below posted on the Summit website. You might also remember to state that the poles are class 70 this may reduce the price.
http://www.polevaultsummit.com/post_2002_summit.2.htm
Bax Shipping is Back!!!
If you would like to ship your poles to the Reno Pole Vault Summit instead of carrying them as baggage with your flight, follow these steps:

• Call 1-800-CALL-BAX or go online to www.baxglobal.com to find the nearest Bax terminal to you.

• Call Jennifer at 1-800-537-7117 with the following information:
a. Number of Poles to be shipped.
b. Length of the longest pole.
c. The terminal you will be shipping out of.
She will fax or email you a preprinted Bill of Lading for you to bring with you when you drop your poles off at the Bax Terminal.

• Bring your poles to the Bax terminal with the bill of lading between Monday December 29th 2003 and Friday January 2nd 2004 for shipment to Reno The cost for shipping your poles to Reno will be as follows:
$65.00 USD up to 100 lbs. (approx. 10 poles) without insurance (poles will only be covered for $50.00 per shipment)
$75.00 USD up to 100 lbs. (approx. 10 poles) with insurance for damages up to $1500.00
Poles must be shipped via BaxSaver. These rates DO NOT apply to any air services. Poles will be available for pick up on Thursday and Friday evening between 5:30 and 7:00 pm. Payment must be made at this time. If you wish to ship them back to your local terminal after the event, you must pay and arrange shipment at this time as well. Return shipping costs are the same.

[rainbowgirl28]

Yeah Bax was not an option for me. They take a week to get there from UGA, and a week to get back. I did not get back into town until 3 days before I left again!

Also, they broke Chris's poles I am sure he will tell you guys all about that when he gets back.

[jmayesvaultmom]

That's the major problem....no poles to practice with after shipping and none after. In indoor season with meets almost every weekend, that is not a good option. Those of us flying SW thought we had the better option....only the hassle of getting them checked in at the counter and picked up afterwards. In Tulsa they send them to a warehouse where you have to pick them up after you fly IN to Tulsa. We went straight to the warehouse yesterday and it was all locked up. Went back to the terminal and the lady said since noone asked about them, they left. I told her I didn't ask since we knew where to go and went straight there. It took us an extra 20 minutes or so.

[hurstiger]

We flew out of Dallas/Ft Worth on American West. I talked to the 1-800 customer number the day before we left and she said to bring a copy of their travel policy with me to check in to help rectify any ticket agent who was unfamiliar with their policy of substituting a bag of poles for one checked bag for free. We got questioned at D/FW but showed him our copy of the policy and he said "No Problem" On the way home, in Reno, there weren't any questions at all. This was our first trip on America West and it probably won't be the last.

[DFW-ELITEpv]

Becca, email me or Call me. I live here in dallas Southwest corp head quarters.
I bet you won't have this problem again.

Coach Luis

[Russ]

These are truly horror stories!

I agree w/Bruce on this one. We all might be better off using a commercial shipper. I sent and received many poles (quickly and inexpensively) using Emery/Menlo Worldwide Shipping. I suppose that the trick will be to get the poles to the shipper and then to have someone on the other end to pick them up. Or you can have the deliver held at the depot for pickup.

My sincerest sympathies to all of you who experienced these pole transportation nightmares.

[jmayesvaultmom]

I guess we might have to start driving to Dallas (6 hours) to catch an America West flight!

[jmayesvaultmom]

Does Emery require a PAL account? The problem since 9/11 that I have understood is that if you weren't already set up with a PAL account for shipping, you have to have a business that does shipping, be investigated by the FBI, etc. to set one up. I can understand that they don't want just anyone to be able to ship things on planes.

[lonestar]

Francisco and I flew in on United because they had the lowest price using Priceline.com. When I called them a week before leaving, however, they said they won't take poles. So, I had 2 of my girls each take a pole bag - Laura took a bag on her Southwest flight, Paige took a bag on her America West flight.

Well, Southwest out of San Antonio didn't charge Laura and gladly checked the 16' pole bag on the way out. America West out of Austin didn't charge Paige for the other bag either. So we got both bags to Reno with no charges! Score!

Well, when Laura went to check the bags on Sunday morning at the Reno airport, she got the "we'll just charge you for 2 poles" deal, and ended up paying $70.00 to bring them back. On top of that, the poles didn't make it onto one of their flights and ended up coming in like 6 hours later to San Antonio.

Not to mention the fact that Paige wasn't leaving until today (monday) in the afternoon, and the Reno Hilton told us they wouldn't store the poles until then and that we had to have them out on sunday morning. I tried to check them in for her on sunday, a day before she would leave, but they said they can only check bags at a maximum of 4 hours in advance, no earlier. Just on a whim, I asked United (my airline) if they took poles and could check them a day ahead - they said they would take the pole bag for $80.00, but also couldn't check earlier than 4 hours in advance. Luckily, I sweet-talked an old lady at the info. desk at the Reno airport into letting me leave the poles in her office for a day. I arranged for my good friend "El Capitan" (Bobby Most's dad) to take them with him to San Antonio on his Southwest flight (before I had heard about the per pole charge), and he doesn't arrive until 10:30 tonight. I should have sent them back with Paige on America West, but flying them in to San Antonio just worked out a lot more conveniently for me. Can't wait to see what they charged him - probably 12 poles in that bag!

[wubka]

Wouldn't UCS Spirit, the Reno Hilton and the Reno Chamber of Commerce offer the greatest leverage in remedial discussions with Southwest Airlines?

[lonestar]

I arranged for my good friend "El Capitan" (Bobby Most's dad) to take them with him to San Antonio on his Southwest flight (before I had heard about the per pole charge), and he doesn't arrive until 10:30 tonight. I should have sent them back with Paige on America West, but flying them in to San Antonio just worked out a lot more conveniently for me. Can't wait to see what they charged him - probably 12 poles in that bag!

Update: the poles are home and Southwest in Reno only charged $35 for the whole bag, like they're supposed to! Wonder if it was the same agent working the ticket counter?

[rainbowgirl28]

Wouldn't UCS Spirit, the Reno Hilton and the Reno Chamber of Commerce offer the greatest leverage in remedial discussions with Southwest Airlines?

I plan on calling Steve Chappell today and seeing what he thinks about it... I was going to yesterday, but got too busy taking care of other stuff in my life.