As far as I can tell, Air Canada has no specific limits for checked-in bags as long as you pay the $225 fee per bag for excess bags.
My question is if in practice I would be rejected at the airport if I show up with say 10 bags on a single ticket, for a flight from North American to South America. As it turns out, this may be the most economical way to bring some belongings as part of a move: shipping companies are quoting close to $600 per bag/box.
They can take the bags but they don't have to. If you are planning on doing something like this, I would give them a call and make sure you get confirmation that it's ok on ALL legs of your journey. Ideally get in writing.
$600 per box for international cargo seems expensive. I just shipped a bunch of oversized boxes to Japan and they were about half of that. Maybe keep looking.
No, they can actually refuse even a single excess one if the flight is nearing capacity. Specifically, we have been refused the third luggage from South to North America (did not try the other way), even as we were ready to pay a fee. It was much more expensive to ship and in the end, we had to scramble to ship the last box via an expensive courrier service which also introduced weeks of custom delay and then forms filled in two offices to be able to claim the luggage which did not arrive with us.
In hindsight, we should have called and tried to purchase the luggage allowance as far in advance as possible. This would have either secured the allowance or, if refused, would have given enough time to find the most cost effective shipping option. I suggest you try this since it will be advantageous regardless of the answer.
Their T&C say this:
Carrier reserves the right to refuse excess baggage, for operational reasons. In addition, during embargo periods applicable to certain routes, carrier will not accept baggage that exceeds the regular baggage allowance.
Also, if the flight is code-share the weight limits may not be as generous as the AC limits.
Maybe talk to a freight forwarder or look in ethnic newspapers which may have better deals. You are more likely to need a customs broker at the other end though.
This probably doesn't apply to Air Canada, but a work colleague got a nasty shock when he paid for a second bag, and only at check-in discovered that there was no additional weight allowance for the second bag. He assumed he was paying to change his allowance from one bag of 20kg to two bags of 20kg each, so 40kg total, but he was told at check in that his allowance was just two bags which in total could still only be 20kg, and he had to pay additionally for excess weight. This was a possibility which hadn't occurred to him, and wouldn't have occurred to me.
