It's going to cost fliers more to check bags with American Airlines (AAL). The airline will be charging $40 to check the first bag when a customer is doing it at the airport, $35 if done online. It had been $30 before. American is also making it so fliers won't be able to earn miles if they book their tickets from certain third-party sites.
Yahoo Finance’s Pras Subramanian, Alexandra Canal, and Josh Schafer weigh in on the new policies.
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.
Editor's note: This article was written by Eyek Ntekim
Video Transcript
PRAS SUBRAMNIAN: Finally, I'm watching some interesting news out of American Airlines, raising baggage fees and cracking down on third-party sellers of their tickets. American is raising prices for the first checked bag to $40 from $30, citing increased costs. But also, American says if you book-- if you don't book through them or preferred online travel site, you won't get miles.
Very interesting here, a lot of some of these bigger players, these bigger, you know, your multi-million mile people, usually, they buy from the website, anyway. But what that means is what if they buy from my company's travel site? And that's not part of the American network, right? Is that going to be problem for me?
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yeah. I always booked through the airline, because I ran into this problem right around COVID. I think I did a third party. And it was very hard to get in touch with the airline. It was very hard to get your money back. So for me, I do think it makes sense to book through the airline, book through a preferred travel partner. But in terms of the bag fees, it's kind of getting a bit ridiculous.
JOSH SCHAFER: You want to talk about something we were talking earlier in this segment about--
ALEXANDRA CANAL: $40 to check a bag?
JOSH SCHAFER: --about consumers not having a choice, right, when prices go up.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Insane.
JOSH SCHAFER: You just have to pay it. They could tell me my bag was 60 bucks, and you would just pay it, right? What are you going to do? You're going to travel without a bag? Like at some point, you're kind of strapped to what they say here. And that's just not great if you're a consumer, right?
PRAS SUBRAMNIAN: I mean, if you have status, you'll get that bag for free, but it just kind of shows--
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Well, maybe that's the play. Maybe they want more people--
JOSH SCHAFER: Get more people in the membership program, right?
PRAS SUBRAMNIAN: Yeah, right.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: The credit cards, get on the membership, which, honestly, for 40 bucks a bag, for as much as I'm flying nowadays, I feel like that's totally worth it. If you look at some of the competitors, though, Delta has a $30 fee for their bag, 40 bucks for the second. Southwest still lets people have two bags for free. I don't really fly Southwest, but I've heard good things.
PRAS SUBRAMNIAN: Yeah. Maybe two years ago wouldn't you--
ALEXANDRA CANAL: That's true. But in terms of their-- yeah, I guess, actually to your point, that was actually the meltdown of Southwest.
PRAS SUBRAMNIAN: Yeah, yeah. Right. That was--
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't really-- I like JetBlue, I like American.
JOSH SCHAFER: I like anywhere that's not going to charge me for my bag. I like to bring my carry-on for free.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: So--
JOSH SCHAFER: Yeah. You join the membership. I do think it gets you into those membership programs, though. And I think that's great.
PRAS SUBRAMNIAN: And I think you might see more airlines do what they're doing, saying, hey, you know what? Don't book through Expedia or whoever. Book on our site to get the miles. Yeah, yeah.
