Traveler Shows Off Inventive Solution to Avoiding Oversized Baggage Fees

An industrious Ryanair passenger has gone viral for his inventive, if eccentric, hack for avoiding excessive oversized baggage fees.

An industrious traveler avoided a pricey oversized baggage fee by using an eccentric workaround.

A viral video, first reported by The Sun, shows an airline passenger by the name of Daniel being quizzed about his bag at the Palma de Mallorca Airport in Spain. Told that he’ll have to pay an exorbitant $76 because the bag is ever-so-slightly bigger than Ryanair’s dimensions allow, Daniel took it to the extreme.

He twists the wheels off of his bag, relieving it of the extra inches and avoiding an additional fee. After Daniel completed the bag’s transformation, the astonished witnesses burst into spontaneous applause. Even the Ryanair employees can’t stifle their laughter. Miraculously, the bag now fits the airline’s specifications and Daniel is free to board.

“I told Ryanair it cost me 30 Euros ten years ago, and I wasn’t going to pay the 70 Euros they were asking me for,” Daniel defiantly told the outlet. “So I decided to break it,” he explained. “It would have cost me more to check the case in than I spent on the flight.”

Although Daniel’s behavior was roundly praised as inventive, and a much-deserved payback to greedy airlines, others weren’t so convinced of his tactic.

“Unfortunately, this guy will most likely spend the amount on buying new luggage,” one savvy commenter wrote.

“It's going to cost more to buy a new suitcase that has wheels,” another echoed.

However, one person had some solid traveling advice for everyone. “Send your luggage via UPS,” the tipster said. “You will save 75 percent of the airlines' luggage fees.”