I am so embarrassed by the following that I have not told anyone yet. I pride myself on being such a savvy travelers and I got taken for 120$ by TAP. Below is the letter I have sent them describing the incident. Minor inconvenience to my wallet. Mainly just the embarrassment of not having handled it well. You can bet I will be prepared the next time!!
Dear TAP
I hope I am able to identify myself by giving you this Frequent Flyer number TP 418456636 and this record locator number NUSTMR from my most resent Boston Lisboa Boston trip. Please feel to contact me at tpears@aol.com if you have any further questions.
As you hopefully can see from your records, I have been a regular if very infrequent user of your airline. Until yesterday, April 15, I have been more than satisfied and have received EXCELLENT service. You may be able to see from your records that I had booked my normal Boston Lisboa Boston trip for March of 2020 when Covid hit. Your were forced to move the plane trip from Boston to NYC. I of course could not accommodate such a change or indeed such a trip so I merely left you the money, assuming you have enough problems without reimbursing me.
Yesterday I flew TP 217 Lisboa to Boston. Security preformed the normal check of moving everyone out of the loading area and checked them back in. As part of the process, an efficient TP employee weighted my carry on suit case, informed me that the flight was full and that I would have to check the bag and that indeed as it was overweight I would also have to pay $123.48. Clearly I understand the need to check carry on bags on full flights. All airlines do it. I am 77 years old and have never been charged an overweight like this. I was in the worse possible position to make a reasonable decision. Of course I should have taken the 30 dollars in underwear out of the suitcase and given it to the employee for disposal. I will be prepared to do that next time but having never faced this situation before, my brain just did not work and I paid the fee.
Thank you for taking the time to read this story. Now having lots of time to reflect, I will clearly be prepared for the next time. I will have the bag weighted and certified at the check in, I will have the cheap underwear packaged separately for easy disposal. I would encourage you to have bins available at such check points so that all travelers can take advantage of this easy way to save 123 dollars.
I look forward to traveling TAP for many years to come and hope that you will not come up with some new wrinkle that taxes the creative energy of this 77 year old traveler.