Taking our own car seats on the plane

[juneau]

We've never done this before, so I have a couple of questions for anyone who has.

1. When you check in your car seat for the flight (we're flying BA from Heathrow, if that's relevant), does it need to be in a large plastic bag?

2. Can you get a bag big enough for a car seat at the airport? I'd like our car seats to be in bags, just to keep them clean.

• Is there a luggage wrapping service like there is at US airports?
• Does the airline provide bags for car seats?
• Can I buy them online, if not?

I can't find this info anywhere on either the BA or Heathrow websites, so I'd really appreciate if anyone knows.

I've never done it and tbh never seen or heard of anyone else doing it either. The seat belts are lap ones so no belts around neck issues and they can be tightened quite tight. Also once seat belt light has gone out DC usually sit on lap anyway so negates seatbelt.

I was once given a type of blown up car seat by a travel company for DD when she was 8 but it was totally unnecessary so it went to charity so worth asking at the travel agency - it was a fold up one in a carry bag.

HTH

Sorry, I didn't make it clear - we're not taking the car seats for sitting on the plane - we're taking them for our hire car for our holiday the other end! We're going to check the car seats in with our luggage.

I think they still offer a shrink wrapping service , for a fee. You could otherwise take some bubblewrap and a plastic sack or large box, tape them up, then put it through oversized baggage. If you leave straps loose they are more likely to handle them by them .

Hello, we have done this a few times. I'm about to fly and take two car seats for the first time so am a bit nervous about that!

We use a big car seat bag like this one and also stuff coats etc in to give a bit of protection but we haven't yet had a problem....famous last words!

They take the car seats at check in - you might have to take them to oversized baggage but it's very straightforward.

Not used the shrink wrap service but sounds good if they could do this.

Hope this helps

We took our car seat on a flight as it was the Besafe Izi and we couldn't hire an ERF from the car hire company.

We put a blanket over it (and also a pack of nappies on the seat!) wrapped it tightly with cling film and then pushed the cling film through a hole so it was also in the seat. This meant we had the cling film with us to re-wrap it when we came home.

Tightly wrapping the seat in cling film means any external forces are spread so the seat is less likely to be damaged (works when moving crockery during house moves too).

It might be worth putting some details on/in the car seat too, as the sticky flight labels always look a bit precarious, though ours survived two international flights, so I guess the airlines know what they're doing.

Great - thanks!

I have taken the car seat with BA many, many times. They don't provide anything to protect it so do it yourself. I got a proper bag with zip from kiddiecare. I can't find it now, but something similar to
this on Amazon. Have a look round and you can probably find something more durable. zipped and locked bag useful to put nappies or dirty washing in if your suitcase is full and don't want to pay for another checked bag

At T5 there is a luggage wrapping service - like a massive roll of cling film - but it costs and you will have to do the same thing for the way home.

I never bothered to wrap any of mine and they were all fine.

We wrapped the car seats in bubble wrap and parcel tape, then put through one of the luggage wrapping machines at Heathrow, then covered in 'FRAGILE' stickers. Probably a bit OTT but it was worth it to have the peace of mind of having our own seats at the other end, and not relying on the car hire company's possibly dodgy seats, or worse there not being one available at all.

If you take them as luggage, just make sure you have not used up 2 lots of luggage allowance. I would try and put them in one bag if you can. It won't be overweight and you can pad the seats out with other things.

Car seats are usually extra to any luggage allowance and free.

Car seats and pushchairs with ba are extra items (free) and if checking in on the machines will come up separate. I think when I bought back our car seat from the uk, I had just put in in a black bin bag and taped it up just to keep it covered, possibly with fragile sticker and took it to oversized bags where they placed it in a flat tray/container.

We used bubblewrap and these large bin bags for garden waste. Then strapped with luggage belts.

They go via a separate counter after your normal check in.

We never had issues with luggage allowance.

I checked on the BA website and each DC under 11 with his/her own seat gets a 23kg luggage allowance + car seat + push chair as their standard allowance. I've ordered a car seat bag and we may just take the booster for DS1 (he'll be 7 in three months' time).

Last time we hired a car and a car seat the car seat buckle was broken and they didn't have any others so we had to drive around for a week with a broken car seat. I will never do that again!

Can I just check; we are ok to check in big car seats right? There's not some small print somewhere that says it's just infant ones? We are using the kiddy pro one, for up to four years old.

Yes car seats includes the bigger up to 4 years ones, not just the little infant ones.

Well with BA a car seat is included in the standard luggage allowance for any child up to the age of 11. If you're flying with another carrier though, do check their luggage allowance info. It should all be on their website. FWIW I'm taking a Britax Evolva 1-2-3 for my 3-year-old, and a booster seat for my 6-year-old.

Where are you flying to, are you certain that the car seat you'll be taking for your youngest will actually fit properly into the hire car?.

There is Excess Baggage company at T5 but have never used them. I would see how much they charge for actually wrapping the seats before arriving at Heathrow with the seats. I do not think their service will be very cheap to use.

BA do not provide bags for car seats.