We’ve all been there when we begin to fear that we may have packed a little too much for vacation. Packing for a breakaway is always stressful, whether thats deciding between a hundred pairs of shoes or what swimwear to pack – it’s pretty time-consuming.
And when we do pack too much, airlines show no remorse when charging extortionate baggage fees to compensate for the extra few kilos that we are bringing on board with us.
One woman from the Philippines decided she wasn’t going to fall victim to the airport’s excessive baggage fees.
Gel Rodriguez, who lives in Davao City, was traveling and was preparing to check in her luggage when she was told by airline staff that her carry-on luggage weighed 9kg – exceeding their maximum carry-on weight of 7kg.
She didn’t want to pay the fee that the airline was expecting as, after all, she had already spent enough money going on vacation!
Rodriguez used her quick-thining and initiative and she began to layer on an extra 2kg of clothing from her luggage by putting on several pairs of pants, shirts, jackets, and long-sleeved tops.
She went on to share her layered and extremely thermal airport look on Facebook, which caused the post to go viral worldwide.
She managed to dress herself in 2.5kg of clothing, which ultimately reduced the weight of her luggage to 6.5kg – within the limit of the airline baggage policy.
The Facebook post was shared more than 200,000 times and gained 34,000 likes, and it wasn’t long until the comments came flooding in to praise her genius idea.
“If I had known it would go viral, I would have posed better,” she joked in an interview with Vice.
But while Rodriguez was able to avoid the extra fee, she said she probably wouldn’t do it again.
“Maybe not,” she said. “It was really hot. I don’t recommend other people do it.”
This isn’t the first time a traveler has dodged the system of baggage fees when a woman from the U.K attempted the same hack earlier this year.
After wearing the majority of her suitcase’s contents to avoid the fee, the airline even praising the woman for her quick thinking, going so far as to assure passengers that they would be increasing their allowable baggage weight in the future.
But perhaps it’s better to just pack accordingly and not put yourself in the situation to wear your entire wardrobe, maybe?
