Yes, you can check more than a few bags on a flight—sometimes a whole lot more!
Forget the carry-on versus checked-baggage debate—one traveler flying from New York City to Warsaw, Poland, recently rolled up to JFK’s LOT Polish Airlines with 75 bags. That’s not a typo. The passenger posted on Reddit about taking his luggage game to the next level, sharing a photo of a sea of heavy duty, extra-large blue moving bags with handles.
The most astounding part to Redditors, including me? They all made it onboard and arrived safely to his final destination. Here I thought pushing a cart loaded down with a towering stack of four or five bags was a lot, but this blew my mind. The post got us at Reader’s Digest wondering if passengers are ever restricted in how many pieces of luggage they can check, or is the sky literally the limit?
To find out, we checked in with Anton Radchenko, CEO of air passenger–rights group AirAdvisor, and Scott Laird, an aviation veteran who has worked everywhere from the ramp to the strategy office at multiple major airlines over the past two decades. Keep reading to learn the surprising answers to the question of how many bags you can check.
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Why would you want to check more than two bags on a flight?
It turns out that there are probably as many reasons for packing excess luggage as there are passengers doing it. The Reddit case was unusual (a video the man posted later on YouTube showed that he was hauling donated supplies, including medical equipment, to Ukraine), but it’s really not uncommon for passengers to pack heavy.
People on the move, such as U.S. military personnel, often need their essentials fast. Shipping via sea freight can be extremely slow, so commercial flights are a better option. One Redditor shared a story about unexpectedly relocating from overseas and packing some much-needed household items in checked luggage. The rest, such as furniture, went via sea in a container and took six months to arrive.
Businesses sometimes need to move supplies this way too. One commenter recalled how they’d routinely check as many as 20 bags for work, many of which were oversized. Even with no advanced warning to the airline, the person said there was never an issue: “About one-third the time they’d ask if I was moving, one-third they’d asked if I knew how much this was about to cost, and one-third it was like it was the most normal thing in the world.”
Laird can verify that. He remembers once seeing 45 coolers roll off a Continental Airlines flight from Newark to Anchorage. “When I saw the name on each of the bag tags, I recognized it as the name of a Kosher caterer I had met the previous summer working in a local hotel,” Laird says. “He traveled to Alaska each summer to cook for a tour group of Orthodox Jews.”
How many bags are you allowed to check on a flight?
I checked 75 bags while flying out from New York’s JFK airport
byu/vit-kievit inmildlyinteresting
Not all airlines are created equal when it comes to luggage limits. “Airline policies vary widely, based on their individual circumstances,” Laird explains. “It’s common, and airlines have policies to accommodate, but airlines often apply the rules differently by season or city.”
Flights to or from regions where checking a lot of luggage is common, such as Africa or Latin America, for example, may cap the number of checked pieces they will accept per passenger to avoid running out of room to stow everyone’s bag onboard.
Complicating the issue, there really is no set industry standard with American carriers. “The amount of bags that passengers can check varies between airlines—Delta, for instance, allows up to 10 bags to be checked,” Radchenko explains. “Likewise, you can check up to 10 bags on most American Airlines–operated flights.”
Though the website for Southwest notes customers are limited to a total of 20 pieces of checked baggage per flight per passenger, Laird advises, “Don’t just check airline websites—open the Contract of Carriage document they link to on their sites, which exhaustively lays out their rules on baggage acceptance, including any limits on excess baggage and at what point the airline considers the bags to be accepted on a standby basis.”
What happens if the extra luggage won’t fit?
Be aware that most airlines put in their Contract of Carriage that bags in excess of the standard allowance travel on a “space available” basis, meaning they’ll have to wait to go on a later flight if there’s no room on the flight the passenger travels on. That standard allowance can apply to the number of bags or the weight.
Laird explains: “There are two ways this can happen: ‘bulking out,’ meaning the bags and cargo are too big to fit in the cargo compartment, or ‘maxing out payload,’ meaning the bags weigh too much for the flight to operate if all of them go onboard.”
How much does it cost to check extra luggage on a flight?
No shock here—it’s a lot. The original Reddit poster’s 75 bags cost nearly $8,000, or $108 per bag over the two-bag limit.
Southwest charges up to $150 per additional checked bag beyond the first two, which may be free, depending on the fare purchased. Delta charges $150 for a third bag, and $200 each for bags four through ten. And that’s only if they meet weight and size limits. Other airlines are similarly priced.
How do you even get that much luggage to the airport?
Any which way you can! The original Reddit traveler used a pickup truck and then carts at the airport. Other Redditors chimed in and said it was all hands (and vehicles) on deck when they faced similar challenges. One person wrote, “Everyone in our family either pulled something, carried something or pushed a fully loaded cart.”
They also had to hire a 15-passenger van to take them home. Another person commented that they relied on friends to come get them at the airport in two big trucks.
Are all those bags really delivered to the baggage claim?
Surprisingly, yes. “Once the bags are past the drop-off point, they’re screened and handled like any other,” Laird says.
Still, don’t expect all that luggage to go unnoticed by other, perhaps not-so-pleased passengers. One Redditor who moved with their family from overseas recalls having quite a lot of checked luggage to pick up at the carousel: “The first 21 bags off were ours. By that point every person at the carousel was looking at us like we were deranged.”
Tips for traveling with a ton of luggage
While most people won’t ever need to check more than a few bags, those who do should take a few steps to make sure getting from point A to point B goes off without a hitch.
Sound the alarm
Call the airline ahead to double check baggage rules, and flag the reservations department about your extra bags. “Share as much information about your belongings and the reason for you having so many bags, for example, moving house or emigrating,” Radchenko recommends.
Mind the clock
It’s critical to arrive to the airport as early as possible on the day of your flight. “Most airlines will accept checked bags starting around four hours before the flight is scheduled to depart,” Laird says.
Don’t lock it up
Radchenko advises against using padlocks on bags.
“Once viewed as an essential way of keeping bags safe, they can actually act as a red flag of sorts for security officials, who may get the impression that a traveler has something to hide, meaning your luggage could end up being investigated unnecessarily,” he says, adding that travel insurance will not cover baggage damage incurred during TSA security checks.
Ask for backup
Traveling with a lot of luggage understandably puts customs agents on high alert, but there are ways to smooth things over.
“If crossing an international border with that amount of luggage, it would be helpful to hire a customs broker to advise on logistics,” Laird says. “Some of them can even meet you in customs on arrival to help you clear your luggage.”
Compare prices
“It’s also worth calling the airline’s cargo department or a freight forwarder if you need to move a large amount of commodities,” Laird says, explaining that “there may be cheaper or easier options than checking them as baggage onboard a commercial flight.”
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About the experts
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Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of travel stories that help readers explore the world safely, easily and affordably. We regularly cover topics such as the best places to visit (and the best times to visit them), tips and tricks to zoom through airport security, flight-attendant secrets, hotel-room hacks and more. We’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Sources:
- Scott Laird, airport frontline expert and corporate strategist; email interview, September 2025
- Anton Radchenko, CEO of air passenger rights specialists AirAdvisor; email interview, September 2025
- Reddit: “I checked 75 bags while flying out from New York’s JFK airport”
- YouTube: “Vit delivers another batch to Ukraine”
- Southwest: “Optional Travel Charges”
- Delta: “Excess and Overweight Baggage”
