About bring your own stroller and carseat for air travel

Bring a baby for air travel is a hassell, especially with stroller and car seat, here are some our experiences:

1)Do not bring a expensive stroller, it might be get broken during the flight.
We brought our Peg Prego P3 the first time when Summer took her first air trip to MI, when we arrived and got our stroller, the cup holder was broken and it felt weired to push the stroller as well, I talked to the NW luggage service, the people worked there were rude and claimed that they do not have any responsible for the stroller, after my strong protection, I got to talk to the supervisor, which quite frankly was very nice and explained to me the rule, after she researched the stroller, she agreed to give us $175 NW voucher and stated that since she is a mother of two and even the regulation stated that NW has no responsible for the broken stroller, the Peg Perego is a high end product, them agreed to pay certain amount of the lost, one other word, if it is not a high end product, they will not pay any penny(what a stupid logic)! And she advised me not to bring a high end stroller next time.

Lucky the stroller appeared to be fine after 10 min, I got couple of free cup holders from a local baby store, and did use the voucher for a later trip, but I am not going to take any risk and bring the Peg Perego for another flight any more.

2)Bring your own carseat, try to avoid to use the car seats from the rental car companies.

Most rental car companies provide car seat, but most of them are out of shape, they are dirty(disgusting) and some of them even missing parts which make me feel dangerous. Last time, one of our friends brought their kid over from Canada and we tried 1 hour to find a decent car seat from Avis in the airport, and as soon as they come to our house, they borrowed one of our spare car seat!

Generally I think that check-in car seat is safe, especially if you have your own cover or use standard plastic wrap which is provided from the airport.