Man, that $35 fee stings worse than the size change itself. I got hit with the same thing last year and it made me feel like a chump standing there at the gate. The tricky part is the size limits were never really the same across all the airlines to begin with, so a bag that slides by on one carrier gets flagged on another. Nobody warns you, they just quietly shrink the sizer and let the fees pile up. I finally caved and bought a cheap tape measure to keep in my desk drawer, and now I check my bag before every single trip. Five years of smooth flying just means you got lucky for a while, not that the rules stayed put.

That 3/16 flag before the seal is the right call, once they seal over a rise like that it never comes out. We've been seeing tighter specs on warehouse work too, usually the GC's spec book driving it. Keep walking them early, cheaper than a grind and patch later.