When we went to Turkey last October with Thomas Cook I bought a holdall on wheels which weighed less than my suitcases. Its worth weighing your cases empty as some weigh 5 kgs at least!
We were only allowed 15kgs but I put the heaviest items in my hand luggage such as shoes and books.
Both weighted 14kgs on the outward journey and 14.5kgs on the return journey despite being minus all the toiletries and sun creams.
The scales at Dalaman airport were not switched on until the check in clerks were ready to start check in,so dont rely on being able to weigh your cases before checking in.
I am going with Thomson in 3 weeks and have a 20kg allowance but I will have no where near that as I discovered it wasnt necessary to take all my shoes.

good point, when i went last year for season i ended up buying 2 holdalls from tesco (£7 each) cos they weighed only 1kg each compared to my case being 7kg it was well worth doing so!need less to say i have advised everyone goin on holl to ditch their case and buy holdalls xxx

Thank you all for your help and suggestions.

Have decided to buy a holdall on wheels from Argos which was suggested in earlier pages which weighs 1.75 kgs empty, also daughter lending us a medium size case which weighs about the same, therefore we should be ok with 15kg hold luggage each. I'm also putting things that are heavy in my hand luggage, obviously making sure they don't weight more than 5kg each. Think my husband is quite pleased about the weight being less than we normally have because he says we take too much anyway - the travel iron has travelled around the world and never been used is one of his sayings. Anyway, I've also thought of buying travel size toilettries and leaving whatevers left there.

Anyway thanks again for your help, I'll post a quick note to tell you how we got on when we get back.

Sue

Or better still don't buy any toilettries and get them all when you get out there, that's what we do, they weigh so much otherwise.

toiletries are costly in turkey, even the sun lotions !! as they know you need them !!

Buy small size and discard them b4 coming home of give them to your maid, think she would like that, tell her their a thank you present for cleaning your room !!

but then if you left them in the room, i bet they take them anyway

yes i have to agree, i would take sun protection with me, and if you use hair serum or anything like that too! if you use hairspray just buy a mini one at airport in boots once through security cos it will do you couple weeks no prob! but as for shampoo,conditioner,deodorant, shower gel,soap etc i just buy there!as i lived there last season i had to be wise when going lol so didnt take unneccessary toiletries, when there i bought the turkish makes and they were fine and just like here, when my family came i told them not to bring and i just bought dove from kipa as it was on offer- it wasnt too much anyway!they used it between the 3 of them and left me the rest lol i always thought i didnt take much toiletries away with me but when i weighed what normally i take it was 1-2 kg this woulda cost me between £7-£14 for being over, more than the toiletries cost so be careful!x

Dalaman airport has always been a fairly easy airport to travel through! been going since 2003 up to 4 times a year and never had a problem there once! we have in manchester with Thomas Cook got charged £128 in extra luggage fees for around 5 or 6 kilos over between 3 of us! but we were there for over 5 weeks so it is our fault we over packed But the service agents at manchester was really quite off with us for no reason, probably because whe wanted an easy time and we were the last flight out! But never mind!
The only problem with dalaman airport is the food prices!!!
No-one should be put off by a few bad stories! Well we never have been as were going in 16 days
icmeler girl

Thats a lot for been over your allowance, I thought it was £8 per kg.

Sue

We thought that, but i was 5 kg over, my dad was 3 kgs over and my mum was just under, and we paid for extra luggage, it didnt make sense to us, but they explained it at the time and made it sound like it made sense, so i dont know

I was over going out and coming back, I was charged £8 per kilo both ways, at Belfast they said I could either pay or take some out and put it in my hand luggage, I just paid it... Coming back, they didnt give me the option to re~locate my smalls (lol) but i wouldnt have started opening my case anyway... I knew I was over so no big hassle as far as i'm concerned... The girls on the desk at both Belfast and Dalaman were really nice about it.. not at all snooty or aggressive so didnt put my back up in any way!! lol!.. ~x~

Please have a look through the pages of this thread regarding information on the charging of excess baggage. It's a commoin question and cause of complaint. This is nothing new and is not limited to Dalaman. Over the years, airlines have allowed passengers to get away with a ferw extra kg's of luggage. However, with the current economic climate and many airlines struggling to stay in the black, they are very strict these days on excess luggage and will charge you if you are over, even slightly over. The current rate is £8-10 per kg, but this varies between airlines. This has nothing to do with Dalaman airport or their staff. The check-in agents are employees of a local ground handling companies (Celebi) who are appointed by airlines to administer check-in procedures locally. They are acting on instruction of airlines. It is therefore airlines that are charging you for excess baggage, not the airport. This has been discussed many times on this thread. Many people, including myself now travel with a set of compact luggage scales to weigh suitcases before setting off for the airport, this is particulary prevelent for the inbound flight. More details on luggage scales here. This is recommended practice for any destination, not just Turkey or Dalaman airport.

olwenjlangford,

It very much depends on the airline you are travelling with. Many charter / scheduled airlines will have a standard luggage allowance. If you are travelling with a low cost airline, they often charger extra for checked-in luggage. You have to bear in mind you'll often be paying a lower price for the initial ticket so have to take the whole cost of the flight / holiday in to consideration.

Darren

I totally agree with Darren..this is not just something for Turkey or particularly the Dalaman airport but everywhere in the world..here are my recent experiences at the Istanbul airport..

BTW..we fly BA this winter and were only a total of 5 kgs over the allowed luggage for international travel..

however we were 4 persons with allowance for up to 8 bags..we only had 3 bags between 4 persons..we were forced to either pay the large sum of money for extra baggage or buy another suitcase..which we did..this extra suitcase cost us 100 liras in the Istanbul airport and I could have bought one for less than half this price in antalya..or my husband should have listened to me in the first place..lol

so here we are in the middle of the Istanbul airport ..transferring bits and pieces of our luggage into another bag..and many people were having similar problems like ours..my biggest beef was we had far less in Kgs..for our total luggage..and the total over wieght total was 5 kgs..so lesson well learned..

on our return to Turkey..here is us in florida wieghing each bag on a bathroom scale to make sure that it did not go over the limit...we came back with 5 pieces of luggage..lol..

to be precise ..one case was 3 kgs over the limit and the other was 2 kgs over the limit..the third case was fine..and yes we were mad.!!! and I tried to explain that we only had the three bags and not our total allowance of 8 bags..so go figure..and yes I admit I did do a bit of shopping..me and my daughter..however my hubby and son bought more shoes than we did..lol..

now I cant remember the acutal kgs allowance it was either 21kgs..or 23kgs..with BA..international and long haul..if we were only travelling short haul say just to the UK ..we could only have had the 4 bags max..ok just looked it up and it was 23 kgs.

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/bagchk/public/en_gb

Your free checked baggage weight allowances

The weight of each bag:
must not exceed 23kg (51lbs) for the free allowance to apply
must not exceed 32kg (70lbs) for it to be checked in

You will need to pay £25 ($45 for journeys from all US airports) at the check-in desk for each bag or item that is over the maximum free allowance weight limit of 23kg (51lbs).

Longhaul £90 per bag or £72 per bag if paid online (includes 20% discount)

they said to me those were the rules and were very strict..

on our way back from Istanbul to Atnalya..even Altas jet never bothered with the 1 extra bag we had from Istanbul to Antalya..we were prepared to take this with hand luggage and they offered to check it and no addtional costs..yipee..

People keep missing the point in this thread.

None of us mind paying when we are overweight. I certainly wouldn't there are rules amd you need to stick to them.

In the above post the instances cited the baggages were overweight so you pay up.

For example if it says you need 4 bags weighting 15K and not 3 weighing 60k then those are what are stipulated and that's what you need to do, however bizzare it may seem. If people can't be bothered to read or read and remember the documentation then its tough.

What folk object to is being made to pay when they aren't as they feel they are being scammed.

Just got back from our local Argos store and got 2 holdalls which weight 1.75kg empty - so thats one each - which I am sure will hold our 15kg allowance each. They seem to have enough room. Also got some travel size toiletries, so off now to sort our clothes out, not long now - going on Saturday.

Sue

Darren - Lol at mistakes happen, there is one thing I am sure about, this was no mistake - I have a note from the UK airport proving so, just nothing i can do about it. Im sure this is not common practise, but i am also pretty sure were not the only people this has happened to. I think even this post alone proves there is a lot of people out there who feel they have been scammed. Whether its down to the airlines or staff at dalaman airport i dont know but i have never experience or felt so helpless in any other airport and im well travelled to say the least. I posted my post not to bad mouth Dalaman airport but to share my experience to avoid others going through what we did as if it happened to us it could happen to others.

Sue - Dont worry, now you know to be careful with luggage weights I'm sure you will avoid this happening to you. I prob had one of the worst experiences and im going back!

We've been going abroad with the kids for about 7 years now and always just take 2 cases and one holdale between the 4 of us,getting a bit worried now that each of our allowances will need to be in a seperate case

hi ndshelton,

No dont get the wrong idea !!

your allowances total say 80kg for hold baggage, you can split them over 4 cases or condense down but remember.... airport staff work to health and saftey rules regarding the weight they lift, so if i was you... spread it out over 4 cases otherwise you may be buying another suitcase at the airport if they deem it to be too heavy,and that will be costly and you will have to re-pack it infront of other passengers maybe holding up checkin !!!!

I would not want to be you
pack your case to the required weight, take more cases if needed but dont be let one case be too heavy to lift ( i think 32kilos )

good luck

ndshelton,

It also depends who you are travelling with. Some airlines don't allow the pooling of luggage and won't accept any bags / suitcases over 23kg.

Darren

sorry dazbo, thought it was 32

should always have one each, then if your under you can buy more !!

or is it so you dont have to carry too many bags ?

Gregg wrote:

sorry dazbo, thought it was 32

It's airline specific. Health and safety rules dictate the maximum weight of a suitcase / bag is 32kg, but some airlines won't accept anything more than 23kg. It's because it's likely the maxumum bag size will be lowered to 23kg in the future (been ongoing for a while but hasn't been reduced as yet). Our manual handling procedures state a maximum of 20kg for a single person lift so it varies.

Darren