Take main buggy or buy second hand one for travel?

[Fruitloops81]

Hi,

Hoping to travel to the US on United Airlines for Xmas. Wondering how you have found gate checking a buggy into hold luggage? We have just bought a bugaboo bee 6 and I’m worried it will get damaged so have been looking at second hand maclaren type stroller for travel. Would love to hear your experiences…!

I'd consider how much you'll use it when you get there and also how old your child is - some of the lightweight stroller types aren't really suitable for smaller babies and aren't that easy to push if you're going to be using a lot once you arrive. And there's things like a rain cover and footmuff that you might need.....

Good points! Baby will be two months old and given that we’re visiting family for Xmas, I can’t see us actually being out and about that much - I wonder if we could just make do with a carrier for the trip…

I think you can buy a protective case for it if you want.

An airline damaged my McClaren once by bending one of the metal parts. They did eventually pay for a replacement

I would get a cheap stroller. Our Silver cross has been on plenty of long haul flights and in the snow and on the beach. You can get a warm footmuff with it and other accessories if needed eg sun umbrella. They are suitable from birth. I just bought the click for DC2 and it’s super light and you can take it as hand luggage on plane.

We have a Bee, Fox and a wee cybex Eezy plus which I got for about £130 for travel. It's nice not having your heart in your mouth when it comes around on the baggage carousel. It lives at my mum and dad's when we're not away somewhere, and I've lent it out to friends for travel. I'd say I've got my money's worth out of it.

You can get a bugaboo cover but they're nearly £100; for that money you can get a fairly decent pram and it's handy to have a spare anyway.

I’ve heard so many stories of prams being damaged on flights (including bugaboos in their travel cases) that I definitely wouldn’t risk it. We have a bugaboo donkey and as it doesn’t fold down into just one piece id also be petrified that I’d only get half the pram back at the other end! We’ve bight a cheap double from
Facebook marketplace to take with us when we go away in a few weeks

We’ve flown multiple times with our mountain buggy but we do have a protective case for it.
It’s a bag on wheels so when we get to the gate we out the buggy in the bag and wheel it down to the plane where they then load it in to the hold.
We decided we would prefer just to take our main one. We also put any buggy related bits in the bag too (handy for extra storage).

We do have friends on the other hand who bought a baby yoyo which folds up and they take it on the plane with them as a cabin bag.