Mistakes
7 checked bag mistakes (and how to avoid them)
Updated Sep 17, 2026 · 7 min read
The most expensive checked bag mistake is leaving the bag until the airport: Wizz Air charges €70 to €80 there against a published online floor of €20 to €25, and Bulgaria Air charges €70 against €50 prepaid. For four people on a return trip that gap is the price of a fifth ticket. The six that follow are the ones that catch families rather than solo travellers.
1. Costing one bag fee for a whole family trip
- Cost
- Every low-cost bag fee is per passenger, per bag, per one-way flight. Four people with one bag each on a return is eight chargeable bag events.
- Why it happens
- The booking flow prices the outbound first and shows one number at a time, so the figure that lodges in memory is a quarter of the real one. Wizz Air's own fee data marks the method as per flight, per passenger, per bag, and Ryanair's fee table says minimum and maximum charges per item per flight. Neither says trip.
- What to do
- Multiply by passengers and then by two before you judge whether a fare is cheap. A €39 fare each to Milan, with one bag at say €25 each way, is not a €156 trip for four people, it is €356. That arithmetic is the whole point of the bag section on every deal page here.
2. Assuming a full-service airline includes a bag
- Cost
- Roughly €30 online and €60 at the airport for a 23 kg bag on Lufthansa, Austrian and SWISS, and €50 prepaid or €70 at the airport on Bulgaria Air.
- Why it happens
- The cheapest fares from the network carriers are now built the same way as the low-cost ones. Lufthansa, Austrian and SWISS sell Economy Light and Economy Basic with no checked bag at all, and Bulgaria Air's Economy Light is a genuine no-bag fare that also cannot be moved to another date. The cabin bag is still included, which is what makes the gap easy to miss.
- What to do
- Check the fare family name before the airline name, on every comparison you run. If the fare says Light or Basic, price it with the bag added and compare that total against the next fare up, which sometimes costs less than the fare plus the bag.
3. Reading Flex as a fare that includes a bag
- Cost
- Aegean's Flex fare carries zero checked bags, and Aegean publishes no bag price of its own. Third-party guides report roughly €13 to €60; the real figure appears only in Aegean's calculator.
- Why it happens
- Flex sounds like the generous tier, and on Aegean it is the one that adds date-change rights and a second cabin piece, not a suitcase. Only ComfortFlex includes a 23 kg bag. The Family fare does not include one either, it discounts one by half. Names across the industry describe flexibility and boarding order more often than they describe baggage.
- What to do
- Look at the baggage row of the fare table rather than the fare name. Every carrier publishes one, and it is the only line that answers the question. On Aegean the Light fare goes further still: it carries one cabin piece in total, the personal item or the 8 kg cabin bag, not both.
4. Adding the bag at the airport
- Cost
- Bulgaria Air charges €50 prepaid and €70 at the airport for the first international bag. Lufthansa's group sheet runs about €30 online to €60 at the counter.
- Why it happens
- The airport feels like the natural place to sort out luggage, and for a family it is often the first moment everyone's packing is settled. Every carrier we researched charges more there, and several say so on their own pages: LOT states plainly that airport prices are always the highest, and Wizz Air publishes a separate airport column that is roughly triple its online floor.
- What to do
- Buy the bag while the booking is still open, then weigh it at home. If plans are unsettled, add it online later from the airline's app or account, which is still cheaper than the desk everywhere except one published case: Ryanair's flat €35.99 bag-drop price for the 10 kg tier.
5. Buying a weight tier below what you pack
- Cost
- Excess weight is €13 to €15 per kilogram per item per flight on Wizz Air, and €13 per extra kilo on Ryanair, charged at the airport.
- Why it happens
- The steps between tiers are cheap and the penalty for missing one is not. Wizz Air sells 10, 20, 26 and 32 kg bags with published low-season floors of €20, €26 and €32 for the top three. A 20 kg bag that arrives at 25 kg can therefore cost more in excess than the bag cost in the first place, with nothing to do about it at the desk.
- What to do
- Weigh the packed case at home, then buy the tier above your estimate whenever the gap is a few euro. For a family, weigh all the cases together against the total allowance, since the heavy one is usually heavy because somebody else's things ended up in it.
6. Assuming the second bag costs the same as the first
- Cost
- Bulgaria Air charges €50 for the first international bag prepaid, €70 for the second and €120 for the third, all per person per one-way flight.
- Why it happens
- Fee tables are usually read for the first row, and the price of a second bag is assumed to be a repeat of the first. On Bulgaria Air it rises steeply, and the third bag costs more than double the first. At the airport the same ladder starts at €70 and reaches €150. Carriers price the second and third bag as an exception rather than a product.
- What to do
- Read the whole ladder before deciding how many bags to buy. Two 23 kg bags for a family of four is often worse value than three smaller ones spread across separate tickets, and on some trips one large bag plus cabin bags beats any of it. Price the arrangement, not just the first line.
7. Buying a bag each when the booking allows pooling
- Cost
- No fee for pooling. Ryanair allows two 20 kg allowances to be packed as 15 kg and 25 kg, provided no single piece goes over 32 kg.
- Why it happens
- Families pack unevenly. One case holds the shoes and the coats, another holds almost nothing, and the instinct is to buy an allowance for each person because that is how the tickets are sold. Ryanair allows passengers on the same booking who have checked bags to pool them, which most travellers never hear about, and which means the total matters more than the split.
- What to do
- Pool the weight across the booking rather than buying a bigger tier for one heavy case, and keep every piece under 32 kg, which is the hard ceiling on both Ryanair and Wizz Air. Ryanair's Family Plus bundle goes further: it carries one 20 kg family bag for the whole booking plus a 10 kg bag each.
Questions
Which fares from Sofia already include a checked bag?
Bulgaria Air's Economy Saver carries one 23 kg bag and the age-restricted Economy Youth fare carries two. Lufthansa, Austrian and SWISS include 23 kg from Economy Comfort upwards. Aegean includes it from ComfortFlex. The Light and Basic fares below those tiers carry none.
Is one big bag cheaper than two small ones?
Usually, on carriers that price per bag. Wizz Air's low-season floors are €20 for 20 kg and €32 for 32 kg, so one heavier bag beats two lighter ones. The exception is a 32 kg case nobody can lift, and that weight is the refusal ceiling on both low-cost carriers.
Do infants get a baggage allowance?
On Ryanair a lap infant gets no cabin bag but may bring a 5 kg baby bag of 45 x 35 x 20 cm, plus two items of baby equipment free per child, a pushchair and one of a car seat, booster or travel cot. Extra infant equipment is €15 at booking.
Can a prepaid bag be refunded if plans change?
Rarely. Ryanair states that a purchased bag cannot be removed from a booking or refunded. Aegean's prepaid baggage is non-refundable except where the airline changed the schedule or lost the bag. Buy the bag you are sure about.
Checked bags are where a family trip quietly stops being a deal, and every one of these decisions is made before anyone reaches the airport. Price the bags the day you price the fare. Live routes are on the Italy destination page and the deals from Sofia page.
Live pages
Sources
- Sweet! baggage research: Ryanair (research/baggage/ryanair.json) checked Aug 29, 2026
- Sweet! baggage research: Wizz Air (research/baggage/wizzair.json) checked Aug 29, 2026
- Sweet! baggage research: Bulgaria Air (research/baggage/bulgaria-air.json) checked Aug 29, 2026
- Bulgaria Air baggage policy checked Aug 29, 2026
- Sweet! baggage research: Lufthansa (research/baggage/lufthansa.json) checked Aug 29, 2026
- Sweet! baggage research: Aegean Airlines (research/baggage/aegean.json) checked Aug 29, 2026