so after leaving Vancouver with no charges (my wind gear was counted as "checked luggage" i got charged of course leaving Maui for every bag, $50 each....when i bitched (which I have been know to do on rare occasion ) they said, "oh so sorry, mr K but (apart from behaving like a dickhead in the lineup in 35 degree heat) u appear to have two bags that go together (board and sail/boom bag) which we will count as one but the boards are defintely separate charges....so i paid $100, instead of $150 and considered myself lucky. sent a note about the confusing wording in their online descriptors: here is what i got back:

"Dear Markus

Thank you for your information regarding being charged for excess / over-size baggage when departing Maui. Below I have copied the portion of your message to Janice regarding this issue. First allow me to apologize for the confusion surrounding this guideline. I will be passing on your message to our IT team for them to consider when making changes to the wording on our web-site.
Hopefully this information will help clear up the confusion. When we are referring to a Windsurfer board under 3 metres being acceptable as checked baggage the intent is to advise our guests that you can in fact bring a Windsurfer board with you on your flight. As well, when referring to a Windsurfer board being acceptable the intention is that all parts, including boom, mast and sail would be packaged together with the board as one piece of baggage. The same is applied when guests are traveling with skis or snowboards, the boots and other equipment must be packaged together with the skis to be considered one piece of baggage. Normally a regular checked bag of that length, regardless of weight, would not be accepted at all by our baggage agents and the guest would be referred to a cargo company for shipping of the item. We understand that many of our guests, especially those traveling to warmer destinations, are going to want to bring sporting equipment such as golf clubs and surf equipment so we have made the decision to allow these types of items to travel with the guest in checked baggage instead of requiring the equipment to go separately with a cargo company. That being said the wording is somewhat confusing indeed.
From your message I am unsure if you checked a total of 3 or 4 bags. In this situation you would have been able to check 1 suitcase and 1 windsurfer board, with a maximum length of 3 metres, for no extra charge. (my point exactly, there was 5 of us, ten bags each, i should have been able to bring 5 windsurfer bags since we all just brought one bag each) Each bag checked over those 2 would be an additional charge of $75.00 and each bag checked over those 2, that was beyond 157 cm when adding the length+width+height, would be an additional charge of $50.00. Please keep in mind that an excess bag over the 157 cm would be subject to both the over-size fee and the excess fee for a total of $125.00.
Due to the confusion surrounding the wording I would like to offer you a credit with WestJet for $200.00 CAD for you to use on future WestJet flights, excluding WestJet Vacations bookings. The credit would be good until June 22, 2011. ...
I hope you are able to accept this credit in the spirit in which it is intended and we are able to welcome you onboard a WestJet flight soon under more positive circumstances.
Sincerely,
Jesse
WestJet Guest Relations"

Thanks, that's very nice of you Jesse i AM STILL JUST AS CONFUSED IF NOT MORE SO...157CM??$75? BUT WHATEVER. Westjet rocks....AND IT'S OURS!!! i am sure this clears it all up

Hey Markus, can you forward that email and the name of the contact person to me @ tony.litke(at)gov.bc.ca please?

I need to get on them some more too, I had something similiar happen.

On the way there I had a board and a bag and my buddy had the sail bag plus his bag - I paid $100.

On the way home I had a board, sail bag plus my bag and I paid $100 again. Still cheaper then renting but again it does not fit with their policy.

that's another reason I love my kite ;)

I can fly free with my Naish "golf bag" packed with 3 kites, 2 boards, wetsuit, harness and bars...even when it's 70lbs+....at one point west jet opened the bag because their large luggage xray was down and laughed when my kites fell out...they still didn't charge me.

If I had declared the gear and kites and boards I would have paid at least $75...messed up system.

Rich golfers are the lifeblood of america! Gotta cater to em'.

Think I'll get a custom sub-3 metre board/quiver bag shaped like a "golf bag". Problems solved.

winddoctor wrote:Think I'll get a custom sub-3 metre board/quiver bag shaped like a "golf bag". Problems solved.

A nice head cover set to stick over the ends of the sails might really help to pull off the illusion