A family-run business, established in 1998. Everything on this website is based on one thing: the real, hands-on experience of helping thousands of people move their belongings around the world — for more than 28 years.
Excess Luggage Co. exists because of a bad day at an airport check-in desk.
It was 1998 — the internet was just finding its feet, and the world was starting to move in new ways. Newly married and heading home, our founder was stung for a painful excess-baggage charge at Phuket airport — that sinking feeling anyone who has travelled with a little too much luggage knows too well. Standing at the desk, paying far more than seemed fair simply to get his own belongings home, he had a thought that turned into a business: there has to be a better way to move people’s things around the world.
That frustration became Excess Luggage Co. We started in 1998, and we have spent every year since making sure other people don’t get caught out at the check-in desk the way our founder was. It is the reason we do what we do — and the reason we understand exactly the problem you are trying to solve today.
We’re a family-run business that has spent over 28 years helping people move their belongings from the UK to destinations around the world — and everything on this website is based on that real experience. We started in 1998, and incorporated as Excess Luggage Ltd in 2001.
We’re not a booking form with a logo on top. We’re a family-run UK freight specialist that has been doing this particular job — unaccompanied baggage and personal effects — since 1998, from our base two miles from Heathrow. Being family-run matters: the same people are accountable year after year, and our name is on every shipment we handle. When you talk to us, you’re talking to people who have very probably solved the same problem you’re facing today.
Anyone can build a website now. Anyone can use software to generate pages. What none of that produces is the knowledge that only comes from actually doing the job, year after year.
Since 1998 we’ve handled the situations that don’t appear in a brochure: customs queries at the far end, delayed and rerouted flights, missing or muddled paperwork, students flying out for the first time, whole families relocating, airlines changing their rules overnight. We worked through Brexit and the new customs reality it created. We worked through COVID and the chaos it threw at freight. Each of those taught us something you can only learn by living through it.
That’s the difference between reading about shipping and having shipped — and it’s the reason the guidance across this site is worth trusting.
When you ship with us, that quarter-century of experience is quietly working in your favour:
Here’s a small example of the difference. A generic website might tell you: “pack your suitcase carefully.” True, but useless.
What we’d actually tell you: one of the most common mistakes we see is people overfilling a single case. We recommend keeping each item under 30kg — it’s safer to handle, less likely to be damaged, and less likely to hold up your shipment. Two 20kg boxes beat one 40kg box every time.
That’s the voice of someone who has watched thousands of shipments go out the door — and it runs through everything we’ve written here.
As a family business, we didn’t build this to be the cheapest quote or the flashiest website. We built it to be the place people can rely on — the same way our customers have relied on us since 1998. Family firms think in generations, not quarters, and that’s exactly how we approach looking after the people who ship with us.
Students become professionals who relocate. Families move once, then move again. The people we help today are the people we expect to still be helping in twenty years’ time — and their children after them. That long view is exactly why we’d rather give you honest, experienced guidance than a hard sell.
If you’re moving belongings out of the UK, we’ve almost certainly done your route before. Let’s talk about yours.
Since 1998 — over 28 years. We started the business in 1998 and incorporated as Excess Luggage Ltd in 2001. We’re a family-run business specialising in unaccompanied baggage and personal effects, sending belongings from the UK to destinations worldwide, and we’re based two miles from Heathrow.
Yes. We answer the phone, and you deal with people who understand shipping and prepare your paperwork. That personal handling is central to how we work — it’s not an automated booking site.
Because shipping personal effects overseas involves customs, documentation and timing that can go wrong in ways a website can’t anticipate. Having handled these situations since 1998 — through Brexit, COVID and countless customs changes — we help you avoid the pitfalls before they happen.
MetEx House, 496a Great West Road, Hounslow TW5 0TE — two miles from Heathrow, in the heart of the UK’s air-cargo estate. We’re a real company at a real address, established in 1998 and incorporated as Excess Luggage Ltd in 2001.
Twenty-five years of experience, a real person on the phone, and your shipment personally managed from your UK door to its destination. Tell us where you’re headed.
Request a quoteOr call us free on 0800 096 38 39