Airline Amenity Kits: How Much Do They Matter?

They make excellent gifts. Or at least the nicer ones do.

On a transon they're more of a nice to have. But on a true long haul they can really be a godsend. Years ago there were amenity kits handed out in coach, albeit more simpler. I find the individual bags of good quality and can use them for years to store smaller toiletries for travel.

I think the issue of waste is that often the contents aren't terribly useful. I agree they're more useful on longer flights, and I think the key here is to make it useful and add to value to the experience for the passenger. I appreciate things like the hydrating mask Japan Airlines give which to me feels very useful when you're in a dry pressurised environment for that long.

I guess the importance of ab amenity kit will change with the frequency of premium travel one does.
For me, I'm only ever going to be on 4/8 segments (1 or 2 roundtrip journeys) and so an amenity kit is something that I can use all year around (or at least most of the year).
On the other hand the difference between alcohol is something that becomes blurrier at altitude and I don't really drink much on flights anyway
I imagine if you're doing these segment 10/20 times a year (or more) the utility of an additional amenity kit diminishes quickly but the alcohol is something that's enjoyed the same amount of time each journey.

My favorite amenity kits are the ones that provide a refreshing face mist! This is actually not as common as I would like. Airline products providing face mist include:
Icelandair Saga
SQ J
AA F

I have several dozen first class kits (mostly EK, SQ, AF, and several from LH, LX, QF) from the last three years, along with pajamas. In July I’ll box them up, with the men’s items going to a homeless shelter and the women’s items to a women’s shelter in the District. I have no use for any of them, other than the niceish AF pens.

If in the context of the comment on Austrian….would a small tube of moisturizer be asking too much?

These kits can be an concern if you receive them making a connection that requires a security check (e.g. connecting at LHR). If the kit has items containing liquids, you need to remove those items and place them in your one-quart liquids bag before the security check; at least in theory.

Has anyone had a problem passing through security with an amenity kit that still contained its liquids?

Virgin Atlantic stopped supplying amenity kits for a few years in Upper a number of years ago, I think this was after the great Ozwald Boateng offerings which didn’t go down well. Now you get these environmentally friendly just throw them away kits which are ok but I tend to bring my own shades are ear plugs, the only thing I need is a toothpick, toothbrush and paste and maybe a basic moisturiser ( oh and socks).

I LOVE amenity kits and collect them. My kid is always looking forward to see which amenity kit I will bring back home. With how much we paid on business tickets (or points), I think the airlines should figure out how to offer some fantastic amenity kits and I don't think that will break their banks.

Hi Ben. Long-time reader and fan here.

I tend to keep the amenity kits, whenever I can. And for an unusual reason: My wife runs DV shelters, and the beneficiaries (mostly battered women), really enjoy the minor luxury and personal touch the amenity kits give them.

For myself, I don't care so much. For others who get something out of them, most definitely!

Part of travel oriented stocking stuffers for kids at Christmas. Add in room keys and hotel amenities. Museum guides. Sort of like Dora the Explorer. Get them to dream up stories. Lots of fun.

Some of the amenity kit pouches are useful...but the contents are not. I think passengers could easily do without them. Experienced travelers bring their own toiletries.

I keep the kits. The mini toothpaste tubes and disposable toothbrushes are useful for short trips. The pouches are good for storing cables.

The most useful kit ever for me was the Delta Tumi hard shell case. I store my power adaptors in there and use it all the time.

I think some amenity are nice enough, while others don't really matter.

QA kits are nice but a bit too perfumed for neither my wife or I to use them. My parents in law however love getting them as gifts.

If the kits aren't nice enough, I would rather not have them at all, and instead spend the money elsewhere.

I personally really enjoy lounge wear/pyjamas and slippers when flying long distances.

It's funny, when they are absent or lacking, I absolutely take note of it and am a bummed by it. When I do have it (or have a great one), I really don't use it much. I do appreciate having a quick access toothbrush and toothpaste, and I like having socks as my feet do get cold. That's really it, though, as I always travel with my own (much nicer/more comfortable) eye shade, and I always keep hotel room slippers for the flight as they are always much thicker and more comfortable than what any airline offers. I do like to keep the nicer and more unique bags that they come in, though, and will use them for random things at home.

I never put liquids in a clear plastic bag and use the amenity kits I get. Over the past five years only at RIC (Richmond, VA) has TSA given me a hard time about not having them in a baggie. Not saying it doesn't happen but for the most part if the items are under 3.5 ounces TSA lets your bag through.

Mostly a waste of resources. I have repurposed many of the cases for more practical items though. I suppose I am just not enough of a pampered metro sexual to appreciates a good facial mist.

I still like them. I only travel a couple times a year in business/first class. It makes the flight part of the vacation, not just getting me from point A to B. The amenity kit can become a memento to remind me of something I hopefully enjoyed. And if done well, a good collaboration can lead to further spending. For a brief time in 2019 Delta swapped out the terrible socks with Bombas ones--we have spent a lot with that company since then. We have also spent a lot on Le Labo and Malin + Goetz after getting the samples in these kits.

Meh I don’t really care. Basics like tooth brush, moisturizer is all I need or use.

I still use my ANA F amenity kit (Globetrotter with products from The Ginza) quite frequently. It matches quite well with my Globetrotter suitcase.

Amenity kits are wasteful, they are starting to pile up at home. I travel with everything I need (my favorite eye mask, mouthwash, sanitizer, etc.) so I use the kits as gifts (but I don't want most people to know that I flew business so I'm kinda stuck). I think airlines should offer all amenities upon request, including the pouch even, lol, because in the end, they are largely just being thrown away. Saving money this way could enable them to carry a larger variety of amenities and perhaps higher quality too. An amenity list could be placed conspicuously on the seat wherever the amenity kit would be, or part of the menu, or an insert in the menu. Items could be ordered through your touch screen or flight attendants could proactively ask.

I used to collect amenity kits and give them out to house maids ( including nice pjs) that help out with the house. Also family and friends with some luxury first class amenity kits

Some gives you pretty big kits which I actually use as my primary toiletry bag.

My wife first got addicted to la mer that came with LH first class amenity. She has used it ever since…

I like the Lalique & Bulgari colognes, and the grandnieces & nephews like the kits

My favorite is the old AA iPad case. Also Qatar case for holding cables and Bose earbuds

I keep mine for whenever I need travel toiletries or a cable bag, but it's usually waiting for you when you sit down and sets the tone for the rest of the flight. First impressions matter and a cheap kit will definitely stand out.

KLM amenity kit plus the Bols House - hands down, best amenity kit.

I got La prairie Switzerland eye caviar in my LH F amenity bag 3 yrs ago. It retails for $500.

Those were great. We had a Tumi store near our house and I took several of them by to get monogrammed.

I stopped taking amenity kits a long time ago. I fly long haul business / first 10+ times a year and just carry my own eye mask, ear plugs, hand cream etc… Always better quality than what the airline gives and results in much less waste.

I haven't even opened one for years, because I take my own hypoallergenic, fragrance-free products with me in the cabin, as well as my own eye-mask. I find the products supplied by airlines are most often highly perfumed, or otherwise unsuitable. As for free bottles of fragrance (hi, Emirates!), they're very rarely something I'd use on the ground, so I don't bother.

Starlux's amenties are top notch for business class, they partner with Three, a Japanese cosmetics brand. Probably the best I've ever gotten in business class.

QR has been phoning it in lately for me. On my last flight, they had an "amenity box", which was a non-reusable cardboard box of amenties.

They're below food, alcohol, seat, and bedding for me, but maybe above entertainment as I always load content on my iPad as a backup.

I really like United's amenities in particular though - they include a face wash cloth, have moisturizing face spray in the bathrooms, and an undereye roller as well as lip balm and hand cream. I use all of those products on every long-haul flight. Like I wish all airlines included a face wash cloth - that's quite useful on a long flight.

I collect them but only nice ones or ones that look more exotic. Nice ones means Rimowa box ones from Lufthansa, EVA, Thai, etc. Air France first class ones with hardshell casing are very nice. Same with Emirates Bulgari leather pouches. Singapore airline Lalique kits are also collectible. Exotic one would be Kenya Airways and Air Tahiti Nui. Ones from United, JetBlue, Delta, etc. gets left behind.

Agreed. They're a nice to have, but I often pack my own stuff because it's a product I know I will want to use (my higher quality eye mask is an example). I don't hate that some airlines are moving towards a "ask the cabin crew" model for items that would otherwise be in the amenity kit. I even like the idea of offering the pouch itself this way. If that means the airline can start offering higher quality items because less people take them, then that's a win-win I think. I don't always want eye mask, but I almost always want a tooth brush.

I actually like that pouch from MIAT!

I love collecting the bags and using them for things around the house, but I only use the toothpaste, free colognes, and sometimes the earplugs. Everything else goes to waste (especially skincare) with rare exception. I don't believe fragrances belong in skincare products. I typically just use beef tallow

Nice idea, in theory. However, totally impractical in practice.

You do realise that some A380 operators have in excess of 70+ J Class passengers on them. A350's / B787's may well have 30-35 J seats.

Exactly how long would it take one or more F/A's to custom-assemble these kits in the manner you suggest? Good luck getting served dinner quickly on an overnight JFK-LHR and trying to pack in some sleep. Might work on a SYD-AUH sector (13 hours) but then has to be done all again on the AUH-LHR (7 hour) sector.

I used to keep some of the kits I received, more for the case than for the contents. They were great for packing cables, power cubes, earphones, and batteries in an easy to identify carrier. I now have enough of them and have thrown away so many of them that unless they excel in utility they don't matter any more. The contents are usually of lower quality (like the worthless pens). But then again I primarily have experience with AA kits.

How many "house maids" do you have??

As long as they have socks I'm happy, other than that better wine and bubbles

It seems to me that many of the carriers have that little plastic thing in place by the zipper to tell if the kit has been opened, so i think some of them do get reused as long as they've not been opened at all. I love how Singapore does it because then if I have forgotten something I can just get the one thing that I need and not waste a whole amenity kit.

I have over 300 unopened amenity kits collected from a number of airlines over the years and they are very special to me. I would typically open the outbound kit, then reuse what I could on the return flight thus leaving the return kit pristine... EVA and Thai used to have the hard side Rimowa cases which were very nice and Singapore had beautiful Bvlgari cases in First. I use some of these for charging cables and misc. items as they fit well in a backpack or carry-on. Most European airlines have very basic amenity kits, while the Asian and Middle Eastern carriers rule in this regard. They are not the most important thing on my flight, but a nice amenity kit is always appreciated!

They matter IMO. When we don't use them my wife and I save them for our house guests or give them to the less fortunate.

IMO amenity kits are a waste of resources. I never open or take them off the plane, it would be just more useless clutter. Singapore Airlines sets a good example here. Just put some toothbrushes etc in the lavatories for anyone who needs them on the flight. I concur with Ben, give me an extra glass of nice alcohol and I´ll be happy, thank you very much.

It doesn't matter. The kit is worth how much, $30? Meanwhile you are charged $3,000 for a business class upgrade, or $300 an hour to sit in a more comfortable chair and get maybe $50 more worth of food. I don't understand why this site and others glamorize business class as some type of luxury worth $300 per hour.

Wonder if there is any airline providing you with normal quality socks in the kit?

@Ben --> Might I respectfully suggest that, on the topic of amenity kits and a few other topics, you have become rather jaded and your "baseline" experience/expectations is a far cry from the average person flying in First or Business Class. Once upon a time, the majority of pax flying in J were indeed businessmen (and the extremely rare businesswoman), but from what I see, there are families in J, leisure travelers who bought up on points or may have been lucky enough to get upgraded,* and so on. (I'd love to see the percentage of seats in F and J that are actually purchased at full price.) In other words, for many people, flying in Business or the increasingly rare First Class is 1) aspirational, and b) certainly not the normal section of the plane. After all, if it were, there'd be a good deal more seats in "the pointy end."

Thus, I would suggest that amenity kits might mean more to the average person on the plane than they do to you. Now, for example, I am in the wine trade *and* I have a commercial espresso machine plumbed into my kitchen, so you know I'm serious about both wine and coffee. I don't fly anywhere near as much as you do, but I will say I've never been on a plane that served true espresso...it's normally "decent coffee" if I'm lucky, or it's swill. Same with the wines, especially on domestic flights. My point here, however, is that while in-flight dining matters to me, it would never occur to me to make "espresso" a separate category when evaluating what airline I will choose for my next trip.

Let me end by saying that, yes, I take amenity kits home with me; it used to be for my kids, but now it's more force-of-habit, I think. Typically, however, I'm one of those people who (now) use them, as opposed to bringing my kids have unopened ones. (I think I still have a few Virgin American kits somewhere...)
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* In the FWIW Dept., to date I've flown AS 3x this year and three times I've been upgraded to (domestic) First. That's never happened to me before (I'm mid-tier MVP Gold), and I'm sure it will never happen again, but 2025 has been very nice to me so far re: airline travel.

Miss the hard case Porsche Design and Rimowa kits from Thai which have now been replaced with soft La Mer bags - not complaining about the skin care at all, just miss the reusability of the hard case kits

I'm 180 degrees from you Ben. I would rather have a nice reusable amenity kit instead of nice champagne.

I keep some and sometimes I'll give them to my driver or my wife's maid. I'll be getting another one on CX next week. Like others, I do actually find utility in them such as using the toothpaste (but not the brush as I like to bring my own powered toothbrush) and lotions. I use the bag/case to hold misc. items.

This is a very easy topic to address. I think you're right that it depends on the market and the airline. If the market is not a high market for airlines that are considered high end then the kits would be more basic. I think the partnerships and the fancier kits of course would be given on airlines that are considered higher end. This got me thinking for example with the Delta partnership about the relationship with the brand and Delta. Some of the airlines might still provide the kits because there is a co-branding incentive for them to do so.