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Passenger puts on 13 pounds of clothes to avoid baggage fees

Passenger puts on 13 pounds of clothes to avoid baggage fees
Posted at 10:00 AM, May 26, 2023
and last updated 2023-05-26 13:05:14-04

Airline travel can be a hassle at the best of times, and baggage fees add insult to injury. We’ve all tried to cheat the system a little, but TikTok user Adriana Ocampo went to comical extremes when her luggage weighed in over the limit on a May trip to Adelaide, Australia from Melbourne. She simply took the excess clothing out of her bag and put it on.

 

@feeling.luckiAnd to add to this they cancelled the flight we had before this one♬ Keep Dat Nigga – iCandy

As you can see in the video, Ocampo piles on layer after layer of clothes, cracking up a little harder each time as she tries to get her 28-pound bag under Jetstar Airways’ weight limit of 15 pounds. By the time she’s lightened the load enough, she looks like she’s trying to smuggle another person under her clothes. The tablet stuffed into her pants is the cherry on top.

“This is how I’m going on the plane,” she said in the video. “I’m in tears.”

A new travel hack heroine? Not so much. The postscript to the video announced that she and her traveling companion eventually had to pay Jetstar a $40 fine anyway after airline officials realized what they were up to. But hey, at least the adventure had an upside: According to Insider, Ocampo’s video has racked up over 1.4 million views since it was posted on May 8.

So what can you actually do to avoid paying those exorbitant fees? When it comes to luggage weight, not much. Clothes can’t be made any lighter, filling your bag with helium balloons isn’t an option and as Ocampo has demonstrated, 13 pounds of clothing will raise some red flags (at least in May). If volume is an issue, compression bags can save you a surprising amount of space. You can also try buying a small item from the airport duty-free store, then pack a few extra things that bag. Just make sure you plan ahead, unless you want to take your own shot at viral fame.

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