Passenger avoids paying airline’s excess baggage fee with DIY ‘Brazilian butt lift’
A thrifty American passenger shared an unusual method of avoiding paying fees for carry-on bags when flying: using her luggage to give herself a “Brazilian butt lift”.
TikTok user Shewana, under the handle @theonpoint1, shared her travel “hack” in a short video, which has been watched more than one million times at the time of writing.
Text over the clip reads: “When you’re flying Frontier and they say your personal bag [is] too big.”
In the caption she wrote “keep it FREE sis”, and one of the hashtags used was #instantBBL.
A Brazilian butt lift, also known as a BBL, is a cosmetic procedure that involves removing fat from elsewhere in the body and injecting it into the bottom to make it bigger.
For her DIY version, Shewana pushed her backpack into the back of her trousers and then tied a jacket around her waist to hide the contours of the bag.
When asked by another TikTok user if she was questioned by airline staff when she boarded the plane, Shewana replied: “Nope.”
The comments on the video are full of people praising Shewana, with a number of travellers saying they might try the hack.
“This is about to be me with these prices,” wrote one, while another said: “I NEEDED this a few months ago. I know what I’ll be doing next time though.”
The Independent has contacted Frontier Airlines for comment.
According to Frontier’s website, passengers get one “personal item” included with their ticket, which covers purses, tote bags and laptop bags. Anything bigger requires paying an additional charge.
Shewana isn’t the first person to try and get around extra baggage fees at the gate.
Earlier this year, an easyJet passenger broke his suitcase in a bid to avoid paying excess baggage fees.
The man was filmed snapping the wheels off his case at Edinburgh airport, after being unable to fit the bag into the airline’s measuring frame.
Last year, a TikTok user went viral for her creative tip on how to avoid paying for extra baggage on budget flights – by removing the stuffing from a standard travel neck pillow in order to fill the casing with extra baggage.
