When you’re trying to keep your luggage under airline weight limits, traveling with gifts around the holidays can be a real hassle—unless, of course, you and your loved ones wisely follow a policy of only giving and receiving silk scarves.
But as you search for ways to avoid airline fees for overweight checked luggage, we urge you to scroll right past a purported travel hack sometimes touted on social media.
The sneaky stratagem goes like this.
Say you’re checking a bag that you suspect will go over the airline’s weight allowance, which is usually 50 pounds for economy-class flyers in the United States.
To get out of paying a sizable extra fee for your too-heavy belongings—which will typically run you $100 or more—several popular online videos recommend using your foot surreptitiously to lift a corner of the suitcase while it’s being weighed on the scale in the check-in area.
That will transfer some of the burden to your foot, the videos’ creators say, so that the reading on the scale goes below that crucial 50-pound limit.
Should you try this travel hack?
No, you should not. This scale scam is flimflam.
When a version of the trick went viral on TikTok in 2023—though that video shows a foot lifting a corner of the scale itself rather than the bag—many disapproving commenters expressed safety concerns.
“Crazy how you think that’s so clever but you’re jeopardizing the flight and other passengers by screwing up the weight and balance,” as one person put it.
Airlines do weigh luggage for a legitimate reason, after all. As aviation expert and frequent Frommer’s contributor Bill McGee once explained in USA Today, “An improperly loaded and/or overloaded airplane is a danger to everyone on board.”
Other commentators have since pointed out, however, that the weights of passengers and their belongings are treated as averages in most cases rather than precise numbers, suggesting a pound here or there isn’t going to bring down the plane.
But even if you disregard the safety considerations, this dishonest scale hack isn’t worth trying.
The most convincing argument against the ploy: It probably won’t work.
You’d have to stand suspiciously close to your bag and maintain perfect balance while standing on one leg so that the reading on the scale won’t fluctuate too much, all while hoping the airline agent doesn’t notice anything fishy going on.
Not to mention that you are far from the first person to try this scheme and airline employees are already onto you, as reflected in Reddit threads about the hack and first-person accounts in the press from airport workers assuring would-be attempters that the ruse “fails every time.”
And if you do get caught, as seems likely, check-in agents might be less inclined to show some degree of mercy and cooperation if they realize you’ve been trying to defraud them.
How to deal with heavy luggage instead
There are more honest and effective ways to lighten your load.
You can buy an affordable, handheld digital scale to use when you’re packing to make sure your stuff doesn’t surpass weight limits. Many reliable devices cost around $10.
You can look into shipping your luggage rather than schlepping it to the airport, which might make economical sense if you need to move particularly heavy items and gifts.
Or you can just learn to pack light, editing your things down to essentials and limiting bulk wherever possible (here are some tips from organizing guru Marie Kondo).
Related: 5 Idiotic Viral Travel Hacks You Shouldn’t Bother Trying When You Fly
