Anyone have any ideas or suggestions on getting around the airline surcharges for shipping a bike? I've got to fly from Atlanta to Cancun for an upcoming 70.3. Tri transport isn't supporting the race.
From what I read on Delta's website, its going to cost me $300 each way for the bike. That's more than me and my wife's tickets combined!!! Anyone know of a deal that USAT might have with an airline or another way not to fork out the $600?
Not that this helps, but when booking tickets to race consider total cost not just price of seats as bike prices vary greatly. SWA charges $50 each way not that they go to Cancun but if we can fly Southwest we always choose that option as it saves us. I've flown 3x this year with my bike always Southwest.
You may want to PM some folks that have done the race in the past and see how they handled it.
You might want to contact US Airways. If you fly to an Ironman event on US Airways, your bike flies for free. They issue you a certificate to provide at luggage check-in. I'm assuming the deal is with WTC, so it's worth a call to US Airways. The certificate ecode is Ironman01 but it's only good on certain dates and to certain destinations. I'm just not sure if it applies to 70.3's.
Don't fly Delta. They charge more for a bike than any other airline.
You can go to Fed Ex or UPS's sites to get an estimate as to how much it would be to ship the bike. You just need the dimensions and weight of the loaded box...you can estimate....the dimensions are more important because at the size of a bike box dimensional weight matters more than actual weight.