Allegiant Bag Fees: Why There Is No Flat Price

Allegiant is a pure a-la-carte ultra-low-cost carrier. It has no named "Basic" versus "Standard" fare tiers the way Frontier or Spirit used to; every fare is unbundled by default, and the airline sells bundles that add baggage back in at the time of original booking. Once you buy a bundle, you can't partially decline part of it later.

Both the carry-on bag and any checked bag are paid add-ons on every standard fare, and Allegiant prices them dynamically: cheapest when reserved online at the time of booking, more if added later through Manage Travel or online check-in, and a flat $75 per bag, per direction if paid at the airport ticket counter or gate. That $75 airport rate applies to a carry-on bag and to each of the first 5 checked bags, so it's the one number in Allegiant's fee structure that is fixed rather than dynamic.

A standard Allegiant checked bag can weigh up to 50 lb (22 kg). Go over that and Allegiant charges published, flat overweight fees: a bag weighing 51 to 70 lb adds $50, and a bag weighing 71 to 100 lb adds $75. No bag weighing more than 99 lb is accepted at all, per Allegiant's own optional-services page.

On size, Allegiant measures height plus width plus depth combined; anything in excess of 80 inches (203.2 cm) adds a flat $75 surcharge per bag, and Allegiant does not publish an upper ceiling beyond that figure, unlike some competitors that state a hard maximum. You can reserve up to 4 bags online per person, with up to 5 total allowed per Allegiant's baggage policy page.

Every Allegiant passenger gets one free personal item, no charge, on every fare. It can measure up to 18 x 14 x 8 inches (45 x 35 x 20 cm) and must store completely underneath the seat in front of you; think purse, briefcase, or small backpack. This is the one bag Allegiant guarantees free, so if you're trying to fly Allegiant without paying any bag fee at all, this is the size to pack to.

The carry-on bag, which goes in the overhead bin, is never free on Allegiant, on any fare. It can measure up to 22 x 16 x 10 inches (55 x 40 x 25 cm), roughly the same footprint as a standard airline carry-on, but Allegiant's own dynamic pricing applies: reported prices online at booking commonly run in the roughly $10 to $18 range when purchased well in advance, rising the closer you get to departure, up to the flat $75 rate if you wait until the airport. Active-duty military members with current ID can bring one carry-on free.

Buy every bag you'll need at the time you book your ticket, not after. Allegiant's pricing structure consistently rewards early purchases and penalizes anything added later, and the gap between the cheapest online price and the flat $75 airport rate is large enough to notice on a one-way ticket. If you're not sure whether you'll check a bag, it's worth comparing Allegiant's own bundle prices against paying a-la-carte before you book, since a bundle can sometimes work out cheaper than a carry-on and checked bag purchased separately.

Weigh your bag before you leave the house if it's anywhere close to 50 lb. The jump into the 51 to 70 lb overweight tier costs a flat $50, on top of whatever you already paid for the checked bag itself, so removing a couple of items at home is usually cheaper than paying the surcharge at check-in. The same logic applies to the 80-inch size threshold: there's no partial fee for being only slightly over, so it pays to measure at home rather than find out at the counter.

If you're deciding what bag to buy for an Allegiant trip, run its exact dimensions through the free fit checker on this site first. It checks your bag against Allegiant's personal item and carry-on limits directly, so you know before you travel whether you're packing to the free allowance or the paid one.

Allegiant's dynamic pricing model isn't unique to Allegiant. Frontier and Avelo both skip a flat checked bag fee too, publishing only fixed overweight and oversize surcharges the way Allegiant does. Where Allegiant stands apart is on the carry-on: Frontier at least includes a free carry-on on its Economy bundle and above, and Alaska includes a full carry-on on every fare including its lowest Saver tier, while Allegiant charges for the overhead-bin bag on every single fare with no bundle that waives it outright.

That makes Allegiant's real free allowance smaller than it first appears. The personal item is genuinely free and generous enough for a short trip packed light, but anyone expecting a roll-aboard in the overhead bin for free, the way flyers on Southwest or Alaska get, will be surprised at the counter. Budgeting for Allegiant means budgeting for the carry-on as a separate line item from the ticket price, the same way you'd budget for a checked bag on a legacy carrier.

The upside of Allegiant's model is that a light packer who only needs the free personal item can genuinely fly for the advertised base fare with no bag fee at all, something that isn't true on every ultra-low-cost carrier. Whether that works for you comes down to how much you can fit into an 18 x 14 x 8 inch bag, which for a short trip is often more than people expect.