Our Send My Bag Review: Cheap and Easy Luggage Shipping
An honest review of Send My Bag – is it really cheap and easy luggage shipping?
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Disclaimer: we received a discount on our shipment so that we could test Send My Bag’s service. All opinions in this review are honest and our own.
When it was time for us to leave New Zealand after over a year on a working holiday visa, one of our major worries was how to transport our belongings halfway around the world. With steep increases in airfares, limited luggage allowances, and huge excess baggage fees, we didn’t know how we were going to be able to transport the things we needed without incurring whopping luggage charges. Luckily, we found Send My Bag.
Send My Bag claims to offer fast and affordable luggage shipping around the world. So we put them to the test and shipped our suitcase home, from New Zealand to the UK. In this article, you’ll find an honest review of our experience shipping a bag with Send My Bag, as well as lots of frequently asked questions – answered – and a 5% discount off Send My Bag luggage shipping.
What is Send My Bag?
Send My Bag is a UK-and-USA-based luggage and box shipping company that you can use to transport your extra or overweight luggage overseas. They have shipped over 250,000 bags in the last 12 months. They operate thousands of routes, have developed specialist and unrivalled cross-border customs clearance procedures and are open for their customers 24 hours a day. Send My Bag has over 116,000 reviews on Trustpilot with an average rating of 4.7/5.
Our Send My Bag Review
We used Send My Bag to ship a medium-sized suitcase from New Zealand to the UK.
The website was really easy to use, we were kept up-to-date on our order via email, and we had direct contact with the company to change our collection to a drop-off in person. It definitely saved us money as we didn’t need to check our suitcase on all our flights.
There was a lot of paperwork to fill in and we did have to faff with HMRC about tax at UK customs, but Send My Bag had lots of easy-to-understand information which simplified the process.
Overall, we were very happy with the service. Walking through the airport with just our backpacks, knowing our suitcase was on its way home, was definitely worth it for us.
Who is Send My Bag for?
Send My Bag’s luggage shipping service is great for anyone who wants to move a bag or box from A to B without having to physically carry it with them. It is largely used to transport personal items, but can also be used to send gifts or commercial items.
Send My Bag is a useful tool for a range of people moving temporarily or permanently, including:
- Expats
- Students
- Travellers
- Overseas workers or those on a working holiday visa
What can you send?
Send My Bag is primarily designed to ship used personal effects, such as:
Specialist items can also be shipped with Send My Bag, including:
What can’t you ship with Send My Bag?
It’s also inadvisable to send anything fragile or valuable like ceramics, glass, or electronics.
All the information on which items you can and can’t transport to certain destinations can be found on Send My Bag’s FAQs section of their website. In general, you should never pack aerosols, flammable liquids, or glass in unaccompanied bags and you should ensure that you have packed thoroughly for transit and that any cardboard boxes used are reinforced and sturdy.
Where can you send luggage with Send My Bag?
Pretty much everywhere! Send My Bag operates globally and will ship to or from most countries of the world. For a full list, take a look at the handy Send My Bag Destinations Map on their website.
How does it work?
1) Get a quote
You can easily get a quote for your luggage shipping using the Send My Bag quick quote tool. Simply specify the Origin and Destination countries and zip codes, and whether you want Standard or Express shipping, and get a quick quote to see how much it would cost you.
2) Turn your quote into a booking
It’s easy to turn your quote into a booking. Just add the following information:
- Width, height, weight, and length of bag or box
- Type of bag or box
- Category of what you’re shipping
- Rough value of what you’re shipping
- Collection address
- Delivery address
- Collection date
At this stage, you’ll receive an estimated delivery date. You can then add any extras to your order, including:
- A free label holder
- Any extra paid label holders
- Flexibility to change your order
- Insurance cover
- SMS tracking
You’ll be emailed updates at every stage of the process, including what you need to do to prepare your luggage.
3) Fill in the paperwork
There’s quite a bit of paperwork to sort out but it’s all contained in your account. You can fill in the shipping documents, which might include:
Name Verification – who owns the bag and who is receiving the bag.
Personal Effects Form – a declaration that the items you’re sending are used personal effects for your sole use.
Packing List – a detailed breakdown of the type and number of items in your bag or box for customs.
Label Documents – labels to attach to your bag for shipping, a spare copy for inside, and a driver’s copy.
Bags from outside the EU need a separate customs clearance label. This is also emailed to you and needs to be printed and attached to your bag or box in a separate wallet. You can read more about customs later in this article.
4) Print and attach your labels
At least 5 days before your collection date, a booking confirmation email will be sent to you which includes a tracking number and links where you can download your labels. If you book in plenty of time, there’s also the option to have labels printed and sent to you.
You will need to print these labels and attach them to your bag as they are compulsory for shipping excess baggage on all of Send My Bag’s services. You need to put a spare copy inside each bag too. The driver copy is handed to the driver upon collection.
Pro-tip: Place your order in plenty of time to receive the free luggage label from Send My Bag as this is by far the easiest way to attach your labels.
Send My Bag makes it very clear they’re not responsible for your luggage getting lost if you fail to attach the labels sufficiently. This was a bit worrying for us as we placed our order only a week in advance and our Send My Bag label holders didn’t arrive in time.
Don’t worry, you can still attach all your labels yourself, you just need to be really sure they’re stuck on properly. You can put the labels in a plastic wallet and loop tape around the edges of the label, all the way around the bag, doubling back on yourself. Do not try to attach a plastic wallet with string as this is not secure. A nice employee at DHL also helped us stick our labels on with their plastic label holder.
5) Prepare your bag
After you’ve attached all your labels and customs information to the outside and put spare copies inside, you just need to close up your bag or box for collection.
It is not recommended to lock your bag with padlocks as this may stop customs from being able to inspect the contents and can hold up the shipment. Instead, use cable ties to secure the zips.
There are useful videos on preparing your bag or box for shipment on the Send My Bag website.
6) Collection
Pick-up is super easy. Your luggage will be collected from your apartment, hotel, office, or wherever you specified in the collection details.
As we were leaving our flat and travelling in a camper car for a couple of weeks before flying out of the country, we contacted Send My Bag after placing our order and they updated our order so we could drop our bag off in person at the DHL at Christchurch airport. This is a great option if you’re travelling more nomadically or aren’t staying somewhere you can arrange a pick-up from.
7) Track your luggage
You can track your luggage in your account and you will be sent regular updates by the courier company to let you know at what stage of the shipment your bag is at.
8) Customs
Honestly, customs is the most painful part of the process.
Your shipment will not require customs clearance when sending:
- domestically within the same country.
- between countries that are members of the European Union.
It’s likely you will need to fill out customs information. This can be done in the Send My Bag portal, which definitely simplifies the process.
Most countries, including the UK and USA, offer a tax and duty-free allowance for returning residents who have been outside of the UK for less than 12 months and are shipping items:
- which are for their sole use.
- which have been owned by them for a minimum of 6 months.
- bought in your home country.
You can check the customs requirements of where you’re shipping to on the Send My Bag destinations page.
Some countries will require further information like passport or flight information. Your bag may also be opened and checked at customs, so it’s important it’s not locked (use zip cables instead).
UK Customs
As we’d been travelling for a while, we had items purchased abroad in Australia, Hawaii, and New Zealand, as well as those we brought with us from the UK. This meant we had to apply for a Transfer of Residence Relief (ToR) code from UK customs (HMRC) using form ToR01. This code exempts you from paying tax on your bag when it goes through UK customs.
Unfortunately, our code didn’t process in time, so we had to declare on Send My Bag that we didn’t have a TOR code. When our bag went through UK customs, we got an email from DHL to pay the tax. It costs us £36.
Don’t worry if this happens to you too, you can claim for refund of the duty and taxes you paid by completing a C285 form on the HMRC website.
9) Delivery
Your bag will be delivered to your destination, whether it’s your house, a friend’s, a hotel, or an office. Or, if you’d rather pick it up, you can arrange for Send My Bag to deliver it to an address for you to collect.
Note: while you do not need to be there for delivery, someone does need to sign for your bag or box, so arrange this with a friend or family member in advance.
Send My Bag has an excellent rate of correct delivery estimations, with more than 95% of standard deliveries and 99.5% of express deliveries of unaccompanied luggage arriving on time.
Our bag was delivered on time and within 3 days of pick-up, which we thought was very impressive considering it had to travel halfway around the world. The labels had remained in place, although the tape was a bit scuffed up, and it didn’t look like customs had inspected our suitcase, as the zips were still tied with the zip cables.
How much does Send My Bag cost?
We chose to ship our bag home when we finished up our time in New Zealand. We were heading to Fiji, Sydney, Beijing, and Italy, so checking a bag on all these flights would have cost us a fortune.
Our standard suitcase cost us £247.25 to ship from New Zealand to the UK. We had free insurance cover as the contents did not exceed £125.
The cost of your bag or box will vary depending on your destination, shipment size, weight, contents, and cover. If you have a direct flight to your next destination and are considering checking your bag instead, it may be cheaper to take it with you. But, in most cases, if you’re considering luggage shipping, it’s because you don’t want to lug your large bag or box around with you and checking it on your route is probably going to be quite expensive. In these scenarios, it’s not only cost-effective to shop your luggage, but super easy and takes all the stress of carrying it around too.
Send My Bag Discounts
Book through our link – Send My Bag Discount – to get a 5% discount on your luggage shipping!
Additionally, once you have an account, you’ll earn rewards to receive further discounts on future shipping costs. 100 points is worth £1 or €1 off your next order.
You can use our social sharing buttons (you’ll earn 100 points just for sharing!) or access your unique link to share wherever you like. When your friends follow your link and sign up, they’ll receive a £5 / €7 discount on their first order and there’s no need for the order to be placed straight away, the discount will remain valid for 12 months and will apply automatically.
Pros and Cons
You may be wondering if luggage shipping is for you, so we’ve put together some pros and cons of using Send My Bag:
Pros
Cons
Overall, we’d definitely say the pros outweigh the cons. Not having to lug our suitcase around the world and pay for checked luggage on our flights was a huge bonus. And using Send My Bag definitely saved us money.
Send My Bag FAQs
How does Send My Bag work?
Send My Bag is a third-party booking platform and use courier services like DHL. Their platform simplifies the luggage shipping process, as well as providing benefits like insurance options and a rewards scheme.
You can get a quote on the Send My Bag website for your luggage and route. It’s simple to turn it into a booking and then you can track your order in your account. You’ll also be sent regular emails to update you on collection and delivery dates and times.
How long does Send My Bag take to deliver?
Delivery times will vary depending on your route but you’ll be kept up-to-date with an estimated delivery date and a confirmed delivery date and time. Our shipment from New Zealand to the UK took 3 days. Most routes between major cities take 1-2 days.
What time does Send My Bag collect?
Send My Bag will collect your luggage on the date you specified on your order between 9 AM and 6 PM.
Is Send My Bag worth it?
Using Send My Bag simplifies the luggage shipping process and is absolutely worth it if you don’t want to have to carry your luggage around with you. It’s also cost-effective and can save you money on checking your bags with an airline.
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