Thanksgiving Travel: How to Skip Checked-Bag Fees This Year
Last updated
The airline’s fee calendar doesn’t take a holiday. Yours can.
Thanksgiving week is one of the busiest travel stretches of the year, and the checked-bag fee at the counter doesn’t go down just because everyone else is paying it too. Shipping your bags ahead sidesteps the fee, the line, and the carousel, all at once. Here’s how to make it work for this year’s trip.
-
1. The Price Tag At the Gate Doesn’t Move for the Holidays
Airlines charge the same checked-bag fees during Thanksgiving week as any other week, typically in the $35 to $50 range per bag across most major U.S. carriers, with a second bag usually costing more than the first. Even Southwest, long the industry’s free-bag holdout, now charges on most fares. For a family checking a bag apiece, round trip, that adds up before anyone sits down to eat.
The fix: get a LugLess quote before you assume the airline counter is the cheaper option. LugLess prices by actual weight and size, not a flat per-bag fee that multiplies by passenger.
-
2. Every Bag You Don’t Check Is a Bag You’re Not Waiting For
Thanksgiving week pushes security lines, gate areas, and baggage claim to their busiest point of the year. The bags that fly with you are also the bags you’re standing around waiting for once you land.
The fix: ship ahead and your only stop after the jet bridge is the exit. No carousel, no scanning the belt for your bag among fifty identical black ones.
-
3. Ship to the House, Not Just the Nearest Airport
Drop your bags at any FedEx or UPS location and LugLess delivers them where you’re actually headed: a parent’s house, a sibling’s apartment, a hotel for out-of-town in-laws. Not just the airport nearest them.
The fix: book delivery to wherever you’re actually sleeping Thanksgiving night, even if that’s a twenty-minute drive from where your flight lands.
-
4. Book Earlier Than You Think You Need To
Thanksgiving is one of the only weeks where nearly everyone is shipping or flying on the same two or three days, which puts real pressure on carrier capacity industry-wide.
The fix: ship 5 to 10 business days out as a normal baseline, and add extra lead time for the week of Thanksgiving itself. Don’t wait until the weekend before to book.
-
5. No One Has to Be Standing By to Sign for It
LugLess deliveries don’t require a signature by default, so a box can clear the porch or the package room whether your family is in the kitchen, at the parade, or already carving.
The fix: give whoever’s hosting a heads-up that a delivery is coming, the same way you would for any other package arriving that week.
-
6. Protect the Stuff You’d Actually Be Upset to Lose
Hosting gifts, a bottle for the table, the dish you promised to bring, anyone’s laptop: holiday bags often carry more than clothes.
The fix: add Value Protection at checkout for anything in the bag you’d hate to replace the week of a holiday.
Thanksgiving doesn’t get less crowded because you wish it would, but your part of it can get a lot simpler. Ship the bags, skip the fee, and let the only thing you’re racing through the airport for be your gate.
And when you’re ready to skip the stress for real, ship your bags with LugLess. No hauling, no baggage claim, no waiting around, just your stuff, already there when you are.