But they don’t appear on price comparison sites. So if you’re shopping around and you see a Delta flight for $300 and a Spirit flight for $200 you have no idea which is actually cheaper. Every time I’ve flown Spirit the baggage price has been variable (based on miles flown maybe? No idea) so it’s not like comparison sites could even add it if they wanted to.
I don't know which sites you use, but Kayak and Google Flights both let you input the number of checked and carry-on bags you're traveling with and include those fees in the comparison.
Right, and they don’t take into account things like “my credit card gives me 2 free checked bags on United”. So in the end it’s still too opaque to really compare prices easily.
Airlines like Spirit and Frontier are just the "bus fare". Want anything extra, like a carry on bag? You'll have to pay for it. Learned my lesson, will just book Southwest or similar next time.
Right, but if you’re not a frequent flier and are trying to just plan a trip, the amount of extra work it takes to determine the actual round trip price (incl. baggage fees) for several different airline is prohibitive.
Many people just pick the cheapest price on cheap tickets or something (which is usually spirit. They famously charge so much for baggage that they end up being more expensive than other airlines)
Don't most of the airfare searching sites let you include your baggage situation into your query? Kayak does, at least. I just assumed the rest did as well.
