Woman wears more than 5 pounds of clothes to avoid extra luggage fees at airport

Editor's note: This article was originally published on October 18, 2019. It has since been updated.

We've all been there at some point. You can imagine the scenario. You're standing at the check-in desk at the airport, waiting to get past all the formalities so you can just get on the plane when the person helping you check in lets you know that your luggage is a couple of pounds over the weight limit. You thought they'd let it pass when you were packing, but it just wasn't your day. Begging won't help. You don't have another bag to transfer some clothes into. But you definitely don't want to pay that pesky extra weight fee. So what do you do? Well, if you're anything like Gel Rodriguez, you get a little creative.

When Rodriguez was taking a flight from the Phillippines, she was dutifully informed by the individual checking her in that her carry-on luggage had exceeded the weight limit. The limit for carry-on luggage was 15 pounds whereas hers weighed almost 20 pounds. We all know paying the exorbitant fee amount to carry just a couple of extra pounds in a suitcase is pretty much runway robbery (pun intended). So Rodriguez did what any reasonable passenger would. She decided to wear more than 5 pounds of clothes in order to escape the unreasonable extra weight fee.

She left her suitcase more than 5 pounds lighter after layering herself with multiple layers of t-shirts, jackets and pants. She revealed in an interview, "I didn't want to pay the fee for the excess baggage because it was only [about four and a half pounds]." To honor the inventive idea, Rodriguez decided to take a photo of the iconic moment and upload it to Facebook. Needless to say, it was appreciated by passengers far and wide. Her post has since received more than 33,000 reactions, been commented on over 1,000 times, and has been shared more than 20,000 times. One user commented, "What a brilliant mind." Another added, "Thank you for the idea." Another still, tagging their friend, suggested that they try it out the next time an airline tries to slap an extra weight fee on their carry-on luggage. Once her post went viral, Rodriguez joked, "If I had known it would go viral, I would have posed better."

However, Rodriguez claimed she would not recommend the idea to others. When asked if she would do it again under similar circumstances, she responded, "Maybe not. It was really hot. I don't recommend other people do it." This is probably in other passengers' best interests. In the year 2015, James McElvar from the Scottish boy band Rewind, lost consciousness when he attempted to pull off the same trick. Some believed he had suffered a heart attack, but in actuality, he had passed out due to heat exhaustion. So if you were planning to try this, we'd suggest just packing with more caution instead. Always better safe than sorry, folks!