Two weeks ago I flew from CT to NC with a bag of poles. I flew Southwest primarily because folks on this board had suggested Southwest. I changed planes en route in Baltimore, and the poles made the change without any problem.
Yes. Southwest was fabulous.
No problems, no hassels.
They charged me $35 each way (they allowed me to put the $70 on my credit card when I checked in - just be sure to keep your receipt so that it'll speed things up a little when you check in for your return flight). If they type "sporting goods" into their computers, the ticket agents have "vaulting poles" pop up as one of the options on the screens.
I think that we have Becca and Steve Chappell to thank for streamlining the process at Southwest. Thank you both!
I suppose that I'd call Southwest the pole vaulter's friend. I'd recommend Southwest.
Otherwise, for shipping poles alone (i.e. when I am not traveling), I've had great luck with Emery/Menlo Forwarding. Cheap & fast.
The absolute worst experience that I've had with shipping poles has been with Airborne/DHL. Paul Richards at Altius shipped me a pole "2nd Day Air" via Airborne/DHL. A week later I still had not received the pole and the Airborne phone operators couldn't even locate it! On the phone, they were very professional and very courteous, but apparently the workers on the ground kept misplacing the darn pole. It took over 2 weeks to get the pole after it had been shipped (and I don't know how many phone calls - although I'm proud to say that I never once used profanity on the phone with the Airborne operators...like I said they were very professional and were honestly trying to help me and to figure out where the pole was). I kept reminding the Airborne/DHL operators that it would have gotten to me more quickly had they sent it by boat around Florida. When one operator tried to explain that the unique shape of the package may have been a problem, I reminded her that it doesn't appear to be a problem for Emery/Menlo.
By the way, the pole itself is terrific, and Paul Richards and Terry Porter down there at Altius were great. They were sympathetic to the shipping problem, and went so far as to offer to ship a substitute pole when it looked like Airborne may have lost it for good..
They are suggesting I take the poles out of my tube/bag and carry them individually but I have to bring at least 4 poles, plus theyll probably get smashed like that anyway!
