Bag Fees Are About to Go Up Again, and Your Suitcase Will Cost More Than a Credit Card

Photo: Drew Taylor on Unsplash

Checked bag fees went up again this week, and they’re not done. JetBlue just made its second increase of the year, so it’s likely the other US carriers will do the same soon. That’s what happened in the spring, when every major U.S. airline moved its first bag to $45 within about ten days of JetBlue’s change. At these prices, one checked bag on a round trip costs about as much as the annual fee on a lot of airline credit cards, and on some flights even more.

I’ll update this post when the other airlines inevitably follow, so check back before your next trip.

Quick Answers

Where bag fees stand now

Here’s what a standard checked bag costs in economy on domestic flights today, each way, at the biggest U.S. airlines. Where there are two prices, the lower one is for paying online at least 24 hours before departure.

Everyone but JetBlue got to $45 in April. JetBlue went further this week: for tickets bought from November 3, 2026, the first bag went from $39 to $50 on off-peak dates when paid in advance, and up to $70 if you pay at the airport on a peak date (JetBlue’s bag page has the full chart). The airlines will say it’s fuel, and the fuel part is real: jet fuel jumped more than 85% in the month after the war with Iran began on February 28, and prices remain high as I’m sure you’ve noticed at the gas station. It’s also the same reason airlines gave in 2008, more on that below.

Then again, JetBlue may just need the money more than most. Its own founder was caught on a leaked recording this spring predicting the airline would end up in bankruptcy. It’s also carrying about $8 billion in debt, and its CEO responded with a memo ruling out a bankruptcy filing in 2026, which leaves us about 2 months. That extra $11 must be the solution, right?

A short history of a “temporary” fee

Younger travelers may not believe this, but checking a bag used to be free. Most airlines actually let you check two bags at no charge, and only the ultra-low-cost carriers (Spirit and Allegiant) charged for them. Then along came the financial crisis (right when I was finishing up college – great timing!) and in February 2008 United announced a $25 fee for a second bag, and in May 2008, with oil heading toward $150 a barrel, American became the first major airline to charge $15 for the first bag. Almost everyone else followed within a few weeks. Oil peaked that July and then collapsed by the end of the year. The bag fees, as you may have noticed, did not.

Here’s how the first-bag fee grew from there, roughly:

• 2008: $15, introduced by American (Spirit and Allegiant were already charging).
• August 2018: JetBlue went to $30, and United matched it four days later, with American and Delta close behind.
• May 28, 2025: Southwest, the last holdout, started charging for bags (I wrote about everything else it has given up since in my post on its Rapid Rewards changes).
• March 30, 2026: JetBlue raised its fees first, again, citing fuel. United followed on April 3, then the others within about ten days, all landing at $45 for the first bag.
• November 3, 2026: JetBlue goes to $50 to $70. It’ll be a mere weeks before the rest follow suit.

So the $15 bag of 2008 (about $23 in today’s money) is now $45 at the big airlines and up to $70 on JetBlue. According to my (AI) research, U.S. airlines collected $7.27 billion in bag fees in 2024 (American alone took in about $1.5 billion). The trend is clear as far as who goes first and second. United has never once gone first. It waits for JetBlue to raise its fees and take the bad headlines, and then, a few days later when nobody’s looking, it quietly matches (the “but they did it first!” defense, I suppose).

Everyone agrees this is annoying

I’m confident most normal people feel the same way about these things:

• It was supposed to be about fuel. Bag fees showed up when fuel spiked in 2008 and never left when fuel came back down. Now fuel is up again, so the fee goes up again. It’s a fuel surcharge disguised as a bag fee, except this one is permanent, because an airline has never lowered a bag fee when the price of oil dropped.
• Everyone now brings their bags onboard. To avoid the fee, almost everyone brings a full-size suitcase through security, then up and down the aisle looking for space, and boarding takes twice as long.
• There isn’t enough room anyway. The overhead bins fill up, so airlines end up checking dozens of bags at the gate for free, which takes longer than if they’d just been checked at the counter in the first place.
• And now they charge for the bin, too. United’s basic economy domestic fares don’t include a full-size carry-on at all, only a personal item, which is them selling you the overhead bin you used to get for free.
• It lets airlines advertise fares nobody actually pays. The fare on the search page looks great until you add the bag, the seat, and everything else, and the real price for a normal family is a lot higher than the number you first saw. Kind of like resort fees at a hotel.

I’ll add one more thing: bag fees aren’t subject to the 7.5% federal excise tax that applies to the fare itself, so every dollar an airline moves from the ticket price into a fee is a dollar it doesn’t pay that tax on, which might be the only tax strategy in America simpler than Bilt.

Team carry-on only (except when the family comes)

When I travel by myself, bag fees rarely affect me. I’m firmly on team carry-on only. I usually travel with a small carry-on and a backpack, because I like to move quickly through the airport. No line at the counter, no waiting at arrival, and no wondering whether my bag made the connection.

Traveling with my family is a different story. We usually end up checking a bag, mostly against my will. Our most frequent domestic trips are visits to family in Dallas and the Bay Area, which means the bag fee is a recurring cost. That’s the mindset I’d encourage you to have about this too, because once you think of bag fees as a bill, the solution becomes obvious for frequent travelers.

When a credit card costs less than your suitcase

Maybe that’s the plan all along. The big U.S. airlines make an enormous amount of money from their credit cards (again, according to my AI reserach): Delta received $8.2 billion from American Express in 2025, about 1.4 times its adjusted operating profit for the year, and American’s $6.2 billion in co-brand and partner payments was roughly four times its own. At that point an airline is a credit card company that happens to fly planes, and every bag fee increase doubles as an ad for the card. I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy, but it might be a conspiracy.

Almost every U.S. carrier’s co-branded card includes a free first checked bag, and many of them cover the people traveling with you. At these new prices the math has flipped: a single checked bag on a single round trip now costs about as much as, or more than, the annual fee on the cheaper airline cards. A $45 bag is $90 round trip on American, Delta, United, Southwest, or Alaska, and on JetBlue it’s now $100 to $140. The Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select, Southwest Plus, and JetBlue Plus cost $99 a year, and the Atmos Rewards Ascent costs $95.

So the question isn’t “is an airline card worth it?” anymore. It’s this: where do you go, or expect to go, often enough that you’ll check a bag, and which airline gets you there? For me, Dallas usually means American (it’s American’s biggest hub) or Southwest, and the Bay Area means Southwest, United, or Alaska. Your list will be different, but it’s probably short. Then compare what you’d pay in bag fees in a year with the card’s annual fee.

Here’s the cheapest card at each airline that waives bag fees, and who it covers. The full list (18 cards at last count, including the premium ones), with what you need to do for each, is in my guide to checked bag fees. Remember – I don’t take affiliate or referral commissions, so there’s no link here that pays me if you apply (why).

A few examples of how fast this adds up:

• My family to Dallas twice a year with one bag: $180 to $200 on American or Southwest, against a $99 card.
• A family of four on Delta, American, or Southwest checking two bags: $45 × 2 bags × 2 directions = $180 per round trip, against a card that costs $99 (or $0 the first year on the Delta Gold).
• The same family of four on JetBlue over the holidays, paying at the airport: $70 × 2 bags × 2 directions = $280 for one trip, against a $99 card.

And that’s before the welcome bonus, which is usually enough for at least one domestic award ticket on its own (the Card Finder will tell you which of these bonuses is best for you right now). I’m not saying everyone needs an airline card. I’m saying that if you’re paying an airline $200 a year in bag fees, you’ve been paying for the card anyway. You just haven’t been getting the card.

The opposite is true too. If you fly once a year, or you spread your trips across three different airlines, adding a $99 annual fee to save $90 in bag fees isn’t a deal, it’s a subscription (everyone loves those, right?), and the fee shows up every year whether you fly or not. For someone like that, the Amex Platinum‘s $200 airline fee credit might actually work better, because it covers bags (and other fees) on whichever airline you choose each year. That said, the Platinum costs $895 a year and only makes sense if you’d use most of its other credits, so it’s not a card to get for bag fees alone, and it’s certainly not beneficial for most people.

One more thing that changes once a card covers everyone: if you’re checking one bag, you might as well check them all and go without essential carry-ons. The hard part of checking a bag is the time, standing at the counter and then waiting at the carousel, and once you’re doing that for one bag, a second or third costs you nothing extra in time if the card makes them free. Every person that checks their bag is one less person hunting for overhead bin space. With a family, that’s the difference between walking on with a purse or backpack while the non-Travel Summary readers fight for bin space behind you.

Do award tickets get the free bag?

This is a common question, because points people book a lot of their trips with miles, and the answer is mostly yes, with one detail worth mentioning. The free bag comes from the cardholder’s frequent flyer number being on the reservation, not from how the fare was paid, but two airlines (and arguably a third) also want the ticket bought with their card.

In short: American, Delta, and Southwest only need the cardholder’s frequent flyer number on the reservation. United, Alaska, and Hawaiian also want an award’s taxes and fees paid with their card, and so does JetBlue’s card, which means giving up whatever trip delay coverage your usual card would have given you (my travel benefits guide compares them).

Two situations trip people up. An award booked through a partner, like an American flight booked with British Airways Avios, should get the free bag once you add your own AAdvantage or SkyMiles number to the reservation. And if you book an award for your family but don’t fly yourself, they pay for their bags on almost every airline, because the benefit follows the cardholder, not the account the points came from (Alaska is the partial exception, for authorized users).

The simple rule: put your frequent flyer number (the one from the airline you’re flying on, not booking with) on every reservation, and pay the taxes on award tickets with that airline’s card. Do both and you’ve satisfied every airline’s rules.

The airline-by-airline rules, partner bookings, bank travel portals, and the cardholder-not-flying cases are all in my guide to checked bag fees.

Other ways out of the fee

An airline card is the easiest fix, but it’s not the only one:

• Elite status: every major airline gives at least one free bag at its lowest elite tier, and most premium cabin tickets include bags too.
• An airline fee credit: the Amex Platinum gives $200 a calendar year toward incidental fees, including bags, on one airline you select. If you already have the card, picking the airline you check bags on is the easiest use of that credit.
• Pay ahead: United, American, and JetBlue charge $5 to $15 less if you pay for the bag online at least 24 hours before departure. It’s not a solution, but it’s saving for remembering.
• Ask for what you’re owed when a bag is late: Delta, Alaska, and Hawaiian give 2,500 miles or points if your bag isn’t on the carousel within 20 minutes, but only if you ask (Delta gives you just two hours to file online), and every airline has to refund the bag fee if a bag is lost or more than 12 hours late on a domestic flight (how generous!). The details are in my guide to checked bag fees.

And of course, the one I personally prefer, which is to not check a bag at all. My family hasn’t agreed to that one yet.

The bag insurance strategy I never tried

Story time! Since we’re talking about checked bags, I have to tell you about a guy I know who approached this from the opposite direction. He always checked as many bags as his ticket or card allowed for free, which on some trips was two or three. They were old, torn-up bags he didn’t care for, and he left them empty. His hope was that the airline would lose or damage them so that he could collect from the lost luggage coverage on his credit card (up to $3,000 per traveler on cards like the United Explorer and Southwest Plus) and from the airline itself, which can owe up to $4,700 per passenger on a domestic flight.

I always found this hilarious, but I never really considered doing it myself, mostly because of the time it would take to drop off and pick up bags I didn’t need. When I asked him about that part, he acknowledged it, and said he’s just never in a hurry. To each their own, I guess. For the record, both the airline and the card pay for what was actually in the bag, and his were empty, so I’m not sure what he was planning to put on the claim form (my guesses are 5-6 ipads, a rolex, and perhaps some clothes).

If you do check a real bag with real things in it, it’s worth knowing which of your cards cover lost and delayed bags, and for how much; I compare them in my guide to credit card travel benefits, and an AirTag in the bag helps too, with a few caveats.

My bottom line

Bag fees aren’t going back down, and every round of increases starts with the same explanation. If fuel prices fall next year, I’d bet on the fee staying exactly where it is, because that’s what happened in 2008.

So do the math for your own trips. If there’s an airline you fly a few times a year to see family or something and a carry-on doesn’t cut it, its credit card now (or soon) likely costs less than the bags you’re already paying for, and award tickets get the same free bag as long as your loyalty number is on the reservation. I’ll be watching for United’s announcement, which, judging by history, should arrive right after I’ve published this post.

Last checked: November 5, 2026.