There are few feelings better than a holiday abroad without the guilty of emptying your bank account to do so.
Budget airlines provide us with the opportunity to travel to countless destinations at incredibly low prices, which is a godsend in these times of ever-rising living costs. It allows us to still enjoy our holidays without spending months playing financial catch-up.
However, the very same airlines can be notorious for their additional charges, which can sometimes be astronomical. For instance, checking in your luggage can sometimes add over £100 to a return trip, causing frustration and leading many to try and stuff as much as they can into their carry-on.
But TikToker @vetted.ai has a simple but incredibly effective answer. The content creator shared a video on the platform captioned: “Do not pay for the oversized luggage fees nonsense – do this instead! This hack came in handy on our way back from Mexico!”
She explained that airport staff might ask you to pay the fee or “take some things out of your luggage,” which is obviously undesirable as you need everything you’ve packed. She revealed that if you “have a pillowcase,” then you’re all set because “pillows fly for free”.
So what exactly should you do with your pillowcase if you find yourself in this predicament with overweight luggage? The savvy traveller has shared the clever hack to avoid paying for extra luggage on flights.
She suggests stuffing soft items like clothes into a pillowcase, which can then double as a comfortable headrest , reports the Express. She said: “I’ll go ahead and put my extra clothes, and my hoodie and my sweatpants into this pillowcase and that eliminates the extra weight.”
However, it’s important to note that this trick may not work with all airlines. According to Mattress Clarity, while some airlines allow passengers to bring a pillow on board free of charge, others may charge a fee for this additional item.
Some have claimed that this method “only works in the US,” but others have found alternative ways to bypass luggage restrictions. A discussion on Reddit revealed another potential workaround: using a shopping bag.
One user advised: “Put it in a shopping bag – they won’t check it. I just did that yesterday cause I had a personal bag with me which isn’t allowed so I put it in a shopping bag since I purchased something in the airport and just asked for their biggest bag”.
One person responded: “This sounds like a good idea, and also less risky”. Another passenger recounted a tale of narrowly avoiding a £50 fee for a crossbody bag that wouldn’t fit in their rucksack, thanks to a kind stranger who discreetly stashed it in her duty-free bag.
“She surreptitiously stuffed my handbag into her half-empty duty-free bag after I took out my passport, wallet and phone – which I held in my hand. (The boarding gate people were too busy to notice). I went back and told the original boarding pass checker I had combined the two as requested (actually, she didn’t seem that bothered – as if she had forgotten).
“The kind fellow passenger then handed my shoulder bag back to me as we were queuing to board,” she shared.