Luggage Shipping Guide

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By contrast, the luggage specialists have built businesses around shipping baggage, golf clubs, skis, and other accoutrements of a traveler’s life. They have concierges to hold your hand telephonically throughout the entire process. They are big on personal service, advice, and guidance. Their ­websites are specifically designed to explain and expedite the baggage-shipping process. And the luggage specialists are as reliable as the courier ­services—because they use U.P.S. and FedEx to ship your bags.

What It Costs
Here’s where you’ll have to swallow hard and remember my father’s advice, because shipping bags ain’t cheap. Let’s consider a 40-pound piece of luggage traveling between Los Angeles and New York. The larger airlines will still carry that bag for free on your flight. But depending on the shipper you use and the speed of delivery requested, you’ll pay as much as $260 to have it picked up at your home or office and shipped to your hotel.

Using FedEx’s cheapest published rate for five-day service, the 40-pound bag will cost about $33. Luggage Forward, probably the largest and best-known of the boutique shippers, will charge $123 for the same 5-day service. The spread narrows considerably for three-day service. FedEx quotes $114, and Luggage Forward charges $162. Standard overnight service will set you back $188 via FedEx and $262 with Luggage Forward. (Many of us get corporate discounts with U.P.S. and FedEx, and that gives the courier firms an added price advantage.)

How to Choose
If you’ve committed to shipping bags instead of trusting them to the airlines, the obvious question arises: Should you go “naked” and ship directly with the couriers or pay more for the extra services offered by the luggage shippers? There’s no consensus among business travelers.

Doug Jensen, a Boston-based computer specialist, is convinced that FedEx or U.P.S. is the logical choice. He cites the price advantage and prefers handing his luggage over to his normal package-delivery person. He also likes the fact that U.P.S. and FedEx do not require any special notice, whereas you have to make advance arrangements for a pick-up when you use a luggage shipper.

But Andy Abramson, the chief executive of Communicano, a communications agency based in Southern California, is a Luggage Forward fan. He cites a recent on-the-fly international itinerary change that was simplified by having a Luggage Forward staffer involved. “With one call, they changed the pick-up details, sent new paperwork, worked with the hotel concierge, and coordinated everything. There were no hassles with customs, and they made it effortless and easy,” he told me.

The Fine Print…
What’s a nascent industry—luggage shippers mostly began appearing after 9/11—without a juicy scandal? An early player called Universal Express, which owned the Virtual Bellhop and Luggage Express services, collapsed last year after its founder drained the company of assets. A court-appointed receiver reported that Richard Altomare spent more than $500,000 of company funds on jewelry, then hocked it and pocketed the money. The Securities and Exchange Commission claims he sold billions of unregistered Universal Express shares on the penny market, and a judge characterizes him as a “repeated and remorseless” violator of securities regulations.

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