J.L. Childress Padded Backpack Car Seat Bag - Travel Bag for Airplane, Fits Most Baby & Infant Car Seats, Boosters, & Carriers, Airport Accessories for Gate Check or Baggage Check - Ultimate, Black

Pros:* does its job: protects car seats* backpack strap is absolutely necessary -- the large size and small weight of car seats makes them easily fall off of stacked luggage carts, so backpack is the best option.* backpack can be re-used while at the destination to carry groceries, etc from the car to the hotel room.* this bag has a small layer of padding but can still be easily folded up for storage. I find that other travel bags with wheels have a hard plastic bottom that makes other travel bags harder to fold for long-term storage, and I use the back pack straps instead of the wheels anyway because my wheeled luggage already has too many wheels to navigate easily.I used the J.L. Childress Ultimate Backpack Padded Car Seat Travel Bag to check a Chicco Keyfit 30 (with base) on two 2 hour flights. With the base, the Chicco Keyfit 30 barely fit in the bag and stretched the canvas, but the zipper fully closed and the car seat was protected. After two flights there are a couple of small holes in the bag from it being dragged, but the bag is still usable.Tips:* Airlines will recommend that you check car seats at the counter (not gate check), but they should put a fragile item tag on the car seats.* Upon arrival, the fragile item tag should cause the car seat to be delivered to a bin at the baggage claim and not be put on a conveyor belt. But at Orlando International (MCO), our car seat was delivered to a far-away secondary bin instead of the bin that was closest to our baggage claim conveyor belt. At Canton-Akron (CAK), it was at night and the car seat was delivered via conveyor belt.* Some airlines do not count a car seat toward checked baggage allowance.

I bought this carseat cover for a trip from Nashville to Oakland to take advantage of Southwest's generous carseat and stroller policy. I had read a lot of reviews and there are a lot of products out there but I went with this item because of its versatility.First off this thing is HUGE, way bigger than my little Graco travel system carseat. I could have very easily put the carseat base in there as well (as was my original plan, but this seat does not require a base so I left it at home rather than haul around the extra weight). This cover will also easily fit my larger seat that my husband keeps in his car. In fact it would likely hold two of the small Graco carseat/carriers! Remember not to leave your handle up!There is a lot of padding and it protected the seat very well- I know a lot of reviews expressed concern about that. And with the extra space- vast, vast quantities of extra space- I was able to pack my boppy pillow, extra diapers, blankets, and on the way back, two big loaves of Portuguese Sweet Bread (very subject to being smooshed in the suitcase, but well protected riding in the carseat!). With a large carseat, you won't have this luxury but for the small-to-medium seats you'll have tons of room! (I learned this trick from another reviewer so passing the idea on to y'all!)The backpack feature was pretty good, ergonomic, and comfortable although I did not schlep it around for very long. I did see two other people on my trip wearing theirs and it seemed to be easy to handle- one was a very petite woman with two kids and a rather big carseat and she managed very well. It went through the baggage checking process perfectly with no rips or holes and no damage to the zipper. (But I credit some of that to Southwest having very nice baggage-handlers who take pride in not damaging people's luggage.)One last note, some airports will put carseats on the luggage carousel, but some will bring them to the "oversized baggage" area. Check there if you don't see your seat come up with the rest of your stuff! (Oakland put my seat in the other area but put my way huger and more cumbersome stroller on the carousel, it doesn't make much sense but there is a specific policy about dealing with carseats so be sure to ask about that before you panic as the carousel stops and you haven't gotten your carseat yet!)I am very glad I bought this product and can check my carseat with confidence! Definitely recommended and despite the date on this review (April 1st) NO FOOLIN' this thing is great!

I recommend this backpack carseat travel bag to other parents constantly. It is so hard to maneuver toddlers in a stroller, all of the luggage and the children's carseats through the airport and I find this bag to be the perfect solution. Both my husband and I wear one of these carseat backpacks on our backs through the airport with our toddler's carseats in them. This leaves us hands free for one person to wheel the carry on suitcases while the other one pushes the tots in the double stroller through the airportTravel tips:- you can store extra items with the carseats in these travel bags! I usually include a bag of diapers, , extra jackets, blankets, and stuffed toys for the kids on top of the carseat in the bag so that I don't have to overload my carry on luggage with it. Just be sure that the extra items that you store with the travel bag are light enough so that it does not add a lot of extra weight to the backpack and hurt your back as you wear it through the airport. As long as I just include some light clothing items and some diapers along with the carseat in this bag, as a woman, I have no problem carrying the weight of the bag through the airport.- If you aren't gate checking your carseat in this bag you can also take it onto the plane. Just remove the carseat for use, and simply fold the bag in half and put it in the overhead bin containing the few extra items (clothes, diapers etc) that you put inside it. I find this to be so helpful as it is often difficult to find places in carry on luggage for everyone's jackets, extra toys and changes of clothing that you want to have handy during the flight.- Though most carseats fit in this bag with no problems, some oddly shaped carseats, like the Safety First Air do not fit in this bag because the wings by the headrest of the carseat stick out too far for the bag to be zippered closed. However, although we have a Safety First Air seat, we still use this travel bag with it by zipping the bag up as far as it will go around the carseat and by using a bungee cord around the travel bag to ensure that it doesn't fall out of the bag when we wear it through the airport. (However, I would only do this bungee cord solution to wear the bag as a backpack through the airport. I would not trust gate checking or checking as luggage the carseat in this bag with only the bungee cord to hold the seat in the bag).We have used two of these travel bags for countless trips and have had no problems with the bag ripping or getting holes. The travel bag is also very well padded on the inside and it has protected our carseats from any damage through countless trips. Our toddlers sleep so much better on the plane in their carseats and without these backpack travel bags I have no idea how we would manage to get the children, carry on bags and two carseats through the airport and onto the plane. I am usually asked once per trip to the airport where I got these bags by other parents who are struggling horribly to carry their carseats and luggage through the airport. I cannot recommend them highly enough!