This is what I wrote following our trup in June. Also, check the www.velonews.com website for Bob Mionske's "Legally Speaking" column. He wrote a good one on insurance when shipping bikes.

We shipped our bikes, out via UPS and back via Fed-Ex. Depending on the value of your bike and whether you do the packing or have a shop do it, budget between $40-70 each way for shipping. For the return we had to take our boxed bikes to a box store so we may have been charged a premium. Now that I know better, we may have been able to print labels at home ahead of time. Some bike shops will ship for you and some won't. First time out, we learned a lot.

Bicycling Mag recently printed an article on packing your own bike. The shops will charge $20-25 for this but I'm going to take a photo of my packed bike when it returns for future reference. From reading I've done, Fed-Ex and UPS are less likely to damage bikes than the airlines and have better insurance.