When taking a car seat as hold baggage

[nowwhat]

Should you wrap it or protect it somehow? I'm travelling with my 4 month old on my lap and will have his buggy, but want to take his car seat as it would be actual madness to go where we're going and not take it.

I'm worried about it being damaged. We're flying KLM and I was told I can take his car seat as his checked luggage. Obviously I will have to use it to take him to the airport in the car, getting a bit wound up by something so simple. (isn't it funny how we fixate on one thing that stresses us!?)

Thanks in advance for any advice!

We just shoved ours in not wrapped. Just did the straps up to stop them getting caught. You could get one of those tartan plastic zip up laundry bags for a few £

We wrapped ours in lots and lots of bubble wrap and one of these large garden waste bin bags.

We took ours on easyjet flights a few times. It just went on with the pushchair as it was part of a travel system.

If you are worried could you get a hard suitcase it would fit in?

Unless you can take it on the plane there will be a chance it will get damaged and a chance it will get lost but only a really tiny chance!

I bought a bag from kiddicare for it. That way I could wrap the seat in a blanket and also use the excess space to full with nappies and wipes. Afaik, there's not a weight restriction on them, so it was fab extra baggage space and protection for the seat.

When at check in it had to go through the I oversize baggage belt so I think was treated a little more carefully!

Oh and if you really don't want to take it you can hire them from the car hire places at the airport without a car. Very cheap prices iirc.

Theincidental: we once hired a car seat, a respectable well known hire company we used for car hire before.

A nightmare. Despite email confirmation from the specific hire station and a phone call the day before - no seat. Then a seat was offered which was broken and also looked as if it would just fit the legal requirements.

Finally, an hour after starting the disaster, a seat was found. That was in our home country, so no language issues luckily. The airport we arrived was miles from the next train station. Our destination had also no public transport links.

Since then we only once hired a seat again but my in-laws got it the day before and could inspect it before committing.

I will never again hire a seat when I don't know in what condition it is.

Wrapped in a sturdy bin liner, was fine. They handle several a day, I'm sure.

And make sure a uk car seat is legal in the country you are visiting.

We took bin liners but air transat had their own bags. We had to take them to the large luggage section and got them back from a different bit too (with all the ski stuff.) We took 3 car seats (2 for 2 year olds plus a high back booster) and I was surprisingly impressed by how they were treated.

I bought a car seat travel bag from eBay for ours. If nothing else the strap made it easier to carry. For 'protection' I used to pad ours with beach towels .