American to charge for FIRST checked bag.

[Alex]

I just booked our intra-Europe flights when we're in Europe. For EasyJet they charge you for any checked bags they just make it less obvious. The fee was included in the initial price but on one of the confirmation pages there was a box hidden among the various travel insurance and would I like to buy a house while in Europe and look at these fine Rolex-esque watches we're selling that let me set the number of checked bags to 0 and knocked 18 pounds off the the price.

I'm more annoyed by Virgin's carry on policy. You get one bag per person. Not a bag and a purse or a bag and a camera bag or a bag and a computer bag. One bag. And it can't weight more than 13 pounds. My "mandatory" electronic gear is about 4 pounds total, the gag is a pound itself. So I get about 8 pounds of clothes for a two week trip.

Not a huge problem but I can't figure out why the weight matters much so long as it is within the size limit (and Lani investigated, apparently they don't always weigh your carry on but if they do they are strict about the limit).