Shipping belongings overseas - help, how does this work?

[Darkrainbow]

I'm trying to help a lovely young colleague who is moving at 1months notice from the UK to USA. She's trying to find the most cost effective way of transporting her belongings, she guesses at approx 50kg. Mainly clothes/personal belongings. No furniture or anything like that. I have absolutely no clue how this works or what to look for. We've done a Google search but don't know which companies are legitimate/trustworthy. The first estimate we've found is about £900 - is that the rate to expect? Any advice would be very much appreciated.

If it's only 50kg, I'd first look in to how much it would be to just take it as excess baggage on her flight, almost certainly less than £900. Usually allowance is normally 20-30kg, so it's only double that.

sendmybag are pretty good, I’ve used them a few times and they seem to beat airline prices.

50kg is nothing really - the airline charges won’t be too bad (and presumably would be covered by the employers anyway).

Brilliant suggestion to check out excess baggage charges & will have a look at send my bag thank you.
She's paying for everything herself, her fiancé is in the USA & she's been granted a visa much sooner than she thought so it's a very sudden very expensive rush to get her there. She's got a million things to sort so I'm trying to help her (through the power of mumsnet) with this bit.

Traveling business on United she could have two 32k bags but obviously she has to pay for the airline ticket.

Google unaccompanied baggage.

Some airlines offer an extended baggage allowance for emigrating customers.

You’re still restricted to 32kg per bag (I think that’s UK baggage handlers union rules) but it’ll be more than the standard baggage allowance.

Your colleague needs to check with the airline.

For that small amount of just book it as an additional bag on the flight.

I emigrated here years ago with 2 suitcases. It cost a bit more for the second bag but if she’s just gern through the whole K-1 process (you mentioned fiancé is here) then the cost of the extra bag is a drop in the bucket compared to what they have shelled out so far and what they have to pay soon for her AOS to get her green card (I believe that is running at over $2000 now).

For comparison, I shopped 35 crates when I moved here - 30 of them were books and 5 were my baking things - they were heavy - by container ship. it took 4 months to get here and cost less than a thousand pounds. So 900 for a suitcase is way too much. Shipping by container ship might work if she has a lot of stuff but from recollection it’s a lot more expensive if you don’t have an immigrant visa (a K-1 is officially a non-immigrant visa with immigrant intent). It has something to do with the duty you pay. I was on an IR-1 visa (spouse of US citizen) and that’s an immigrant visa. I remember that playing a part in how much I could import as “personal possessions”.

Have you looked into Purolator? I'd say a box would be cheap to ship

50kg isn't that much. If she's not in a rush for it there's great option on prcel2go. You need dimensions of any boxes and weights and pricing isn't too bad. I've sent 30kg, approx 5k miles (in the opposite direction though) for about £100. Prices have gone up a little in the past few months but air fright is still competitively priced.

It’s probably obvious but remind her not to pack her hairdryer or anything that plugs in. It won’t work the voltage is different And encourage her to really think if she really wants to ship it all. Once she gets to the US and discovers Target she will be able to buy twice the stuff for half the price of shipping it.

Thank you all so much, you've really helped us make sense of it. It's all happened so fast, she was expecting another year before her interview at the embassy minimum. Really good point about electrical items - any other pointers gratefully accepted.
Once she's left she won't have any link to the UK, her & fiancee are originally from a 3rd country so everything needs to either go with her or be disposed of, there's not going to be an option to collect it later.