Genius packing hack praised as traveller avoids paying £43 for extra luggage

A plane passenger has stunned others by revealing where she secretly stashes her clothes to avoid paying extra baggage charges.

The video, posted by Nina Edwine (@nina_edwine) to TikTok and which has amassed two million views, shows how she stuffs her neck pillow - as opposed to her hand luggage - with clothes.

Despite the small size, Nina pulls garment after garment after garment out of the neck pillow - showing just how much you can fit inside. She was able to pack in 10 individual items of clothing - including a bra, tops and a dress - inside her neck pillow. She captioned the video: “rat technique to avoid paying 50euros [£43] for cabin baggage”.

In addition to drawing millions of eyes, the viral video has generated much discussion in the comment section, attracting almost 2,000 comments. The tactic has been widely applauded by the TikTok community, but some people have pointed out some flaws.

“This is actually genius [for real],” wrote one commenter. “I will surely do this my next trip” wrote another, with many others also agreeing they were ready to put this hack to the test.

However, some commenters were sceptical that this would actually be allowed by airline staff. Especially on low-budget airlines like Ryanair that are sticklers for overweight and oversize luggage.

One user wrote: “I was traveling with Ryanair last Thursday and if you only have a small luggage you can't have [anything] else. The lady by the gate told EVERYONE to put the pillow in their bag or throw them away.”

Another user claiming to work at an airport said: “As a gate agent, we still notice and we’ll still charge you for that.” While a different commenter said their attempt to use a similar hack failed: “Did this with a normal pillow and Ryanair staff at Marrakesh were not having it”.

Others joked that, even if gate agents weren’t already inspecting people’s neck pillows for ‘contraband’ they would from now on. “You lot are exposing this and when we get to the gate about to hop on a Ryanair flight, they will want to check everything,” wrote one commenter.

Commenters were quick to share other great tips for how to sneak extra clothing onto a flight without paying for additional baggage. “Buy any item at duty free [store], get a bag to go and you can put your clothes etc in that bag,” wrote one user.

Another tip was to use “one of those Uniqlo cross body bags”, and to “wear it under your coat with a scarf round your neck to disguise the strap”.