Talk to me about flying with LO

jussagirl02

We are flying next weekend (super quick 50 min. flight) and I plan on wearing LO through the airport and having her sit on mine or DH lap for the flight, since it's so quick. We are bringing her car seat. We have a Recaro Performance Ride and it's huge. I want to gate check it, but we need a way to get it through the airport.
I was thinking about getting the Go-Go Babyz strap and strapping it to our carry-on, but I'm worried about the seat getting bumped and bruised at the gate check.
So then I was thinking about getting a bag with wheels, but the ones I've looked at, the Brica Cover Guard Seat and the JL Childress Ultimate bag have crappy reviews.
Help!
ETA for corrections, it's too early!

AKB090609

What about the strap and then a regular gate check bag without wheels?

enjoylife

Ditto @mnkate we flew multiple times with ds1 and checked his convertible seat. We flew with both boys in may and checked their convertibles with our luggage. They are in carseat bags that do have some slight padding on the inside but like pp said all of our travel trips out bags have been undamaged. Now my stroller that was gate checked on the other had definitely had some damage to it....

jussagirl02

@mnkate and @enjoylife Which bag did you use when you checked it? I didn't really consider doing that initially because of potential damage, but if there's a good bag on the market then I would prefer to go that route.

linzeek44

I have a red gate check bag from BBB. I put our travel seat into the umbrella stroller and push it through the airport. Then I ask if there is an extra seat; if so, I take the seat on. If not, I gate check it.

We almost always have connecting flights and I'm nervous I will get there and the carseat won't so I'm hesitant to check it.

enjoylife

@jussagirl02
We have this one https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0009RNXNA
We bought it from amazon for around 30-35 at the time.

We have only flown once with a connecting flight and our baggage and carseats made it, I have another flight this fall with a connecting flight. But just as an FYI if your carseats don't make it to your destination the airlines do have loaner car seats and will courier yours to you when it arrives.

I learned this with our last trip. Someone else picked up our carseat bag when we arrived home from vacation. Our carseat travel bags were black but theirs had a pink car seat lol. Airlines apologized and we filled out paperwork and they gave us a loaner Eddie Bauer seat I believe to get us home and when the other person realized their mistake they took our seat to the airport and the airport brought it out to us. They did tell us if it had been "stolen" then it would be replaced, not by the loaner. I learned my lesson. Our carseat bag now has some exterior ribbon decorations on it instead of just our name on the built in name tag.

jussagirl02

@mnkate and @lovelife
I went to bbb yesterday and bought it. We tried fitting our car seat in it before we left the store and it fits, barely, but it fits. Thanks for the rec.!

damabo80

I'd check it with the luggage. It will get just as "banged up" getting put on the plane either at the gate or at the luggage counter. Fwiw, I've never had an issue luggage checking it. It makes going through the airport soooo much easier. I've flown many times with the kids

linsleyd

Just and FYI we fly a couple of times a year and we check our seats with our luggage without bags and the airport puts them in plastic bags and we have never had a problem getting them back, losing them or having them damaged!  IMO there isn't much of a reason to spend the money on a bag for the carseats...