A female travel writer in Australia decided to fake a pregnancy both for a story and to avoid paying an airline’s overweight baggage fee.
Spoiler Alert: She got caught, and she had to pay.
Rebecca Andrews wanted to avoid the $40 overweight baggage fee charged by Australian budget airline Jetstar for an article to appear on escape.com.au. So she placed her laptop down the back of a leopard-print bodysuit and used other items such as electronics wrapped in satin down the front of the suit. She then layered on clothing.
“You might think I’m joking, (that) there is no way I did this. It wouldn’t work,” she wrote. “You are wrong. I definitely did do this, and it ALMOST worked.”
Andrews’ plan was that if she was called on the carpet about her bag being overweight, she would plead that it was only a few pounds because she needed to carry extra clothes and shoes due to her pregnancy.
But the plan unraveled.
She noted that she was the last person to board for the flight, meaning “the staff were all paying me attention.”
After having her bag weighed and given the clear to board her flight, she dropped her ticket as she walked. When she bent over to pick it up, the shape of her laptop hidden down her back became visible to airline staff.
When questioned about the shape, she admitted she had “triple-layered to make the carry-on weight and not get charged.”
Alas, she was ultimately forced to pay the excess baggage fee, adding that the airline employee “didn’t care that I was cold, and definitely didn’t care that I was (fake) pregnant. The game was up.”
Andrews wrote that she would do it again if her luggage was ever overweight, but with one adjustment: make sure she wasn’t the last to board.