Jbr 8.. Luggage and Excess...
On the day before Lena was to leave we did a dummy pack, it was obvious she was going to be at least 20 kilos overweight with all the outfits she'd had made and shopping she'd done. We headed off with our trusty driver to find the Unaccompanied Baggage Place. We had some vague directions and after about 2 hours we found it, sent it and paid for it. Next time will only take us 5 minutes as we now know where and what to do. For those interested read on.
You can send by either Garuda or Qantas to Perth. You pack your things in whatever you want, Bali Bags are good, as they don't weigh anything, cardboard cartons are good too. You can pack anything as long as it doesn't have to be declared and is not on the NOT ALLOWED into Australia list. Commercial quantities are a NO-NO too.
Go along the old airport road; do not go into the airport, if you get there then you've passed the place. Look for DOMESTIC CARGO on your left, the runway side; you can see the planes taking off. Turn into this area, you will be asked to pay for parking and some other fee which was debatable what it was for, a couple of 1,000 rupiah and we were allowed in, quicker and easier to just pay what your driver says they ask for. This is where you will find the Qantas office and opposite them the Garuda office. They both charge the same. You get to fill in some forms, they weigh your bags and you seal them up, they never looked in ours but we left them open in case. You then take your bags back to your car and drive down the road a bit to the INTERNATIONAL CARGO, probably 50 metres or so. Again you pay whatever is the asking price to go in and park. You go to the cashier office with your paperwork, unless the original man has followed you with the paperwork, you pay the said fee depending on your kilos. With receipt in hand you then put your luggage on a conveyor belt and you can see the men watching it go through the x-ray machine. Bye-Bye luggage and that's it. Whilst standing here you are virtually on the runway, the noise and smell is horrendous, no one speaks very much English but they all seem to know what you want and what you have done....spent too much money in Bali and have to send extra's home!
Cost was cheaper than what we actually got off the forum but it could have been because of the daily rate. There is a one off fee for AWB, which is Air Way Bill; this is made up of about 3-4 different costs. Then a cost per kilo, all costs are in US dollars but they convert to Australia dollars and to Rupiahs! All up Lena paid 690,000 Rupiah in Bali @ 6750 rate that made it $102.00. She also paid $33.00 handling fee at the Garuda office when she collected here in Perth the day following her trip home. The luggage actually came on the same flight but the Garuda office wasn't open at 1.30am! Her case weighed in at 19.5 kilos.
This works out about half the costs for excess luggage at the airport, unless you are lucky enough to get away with it as you check-in early or your cheekier enough to hand over a bribe!