In mid October I took a trip to Hawaii with Kristina and we brought along our ULI inflatible surfboard and our Pope Bisect to see which one is easier to travel with and also to find out if we would get nailed with the infamous United Airlines surfboard fee. It was a really big risk. United Airlines charges $200 per surfboard one-way. So if we got nailed with that fee we were looking at a potential $800 charge. When checking in the boards, the Uli which was bagged in a huge duffle and was check in with no questions asked. When I checked in the Pope Bisect, the ticket agent measured it with a tape measure and claimed that it was too large and needed to be classified as an "oversized baggage" and to be assessed a $125 charge. (Any baggage over 61 inches in length is classified as oversized). I recalled checking on this before hand and measured the bag myself before hand and it was definitely under 61 inches in length. So I challenged the ticket agent and measured it myself. Yup, sure enough I measured it under 61 inches while the ticket agent watched. She sheepishly agreed that it was not oversized. So we checked in our luggage 2 per person and we were each charged $15 for the first bag and $25 for the second (which were the surfboards). Wheww!
On our return flight back we decided to have the Sky Cap dude handle our bags. I figured that I would run into less hassles than dealing with the counter person. Again the ULI inflatable board went through the system with no questions asked, however the agriculture screening dudes were really suspicious of the Pope Bisect after putting it through their scanners. They kept asking us whats in the bag and then decided to open it up. After telling them it was a sign to avoid a surfboard fee the Skycap said "Aha!, I knew it was a surfboard". He then said "well its under 61 inches so I won't charge you the surfboard fee." So that was a close call.
Based on this "experiment" it seems that the ULI board encounters less hassles at the ticket counter. My only issue with the ULI is that it is twice the weight of the Pope Bisect. To deal with the weight we had to purchase one of those colapsible mini hand cart to cart it around.
