Cardiff woman dodges flight luggage fee by posting her clothes

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

I dodged flight luggage fees by posting my clothes

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Laura received thousands of likes and comments after sharing her savvy hack on social media

A "frugal" woman has been hailed as a money-saving "genius" after posting a month's worth of clothing for £2.59 to avoid a £30 luggage charge on a flight.

Laura Poole, 33, from Cardiff, squeezed her clothes into a gym bag, which she wrapped in a carrier bag before dropping it off at her local Tesco Express InPost locker.

Laura, who flew from Bristol to Glasgow on February 22 for a month on business, shipped "at least" five outfits including suit jackets and dresses, saving £27.41 on the trip.

The confidence trainer sent the parcel on the Thursday evening before her Sunday morning flight and it arrived safely in Glasgow just after she arrived in the city.

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Laura threw suit jackets, trousers and dresses into her gym bag before wrapping it up inside a Lidl carrier bag to post at her local Tesco

Inspired by Vinted and its parcel shipping process, Laura has received thousands of comments since sharing the hack on social media and been hailed a "genius". She said she had "better things to spend her money on than really expensive baggage fees" and had used the travel hack before "so I knew it worked".

"I've always been really frugal," she added. The hack led to others sharing their top tips to save money when travelling, from stuffing clothes into a neck cushion to wearing cargo trousers with large pockets for extra storage.

Laura also packed enough clothes in her cabin backpack to last her two to three days. "I would not post anything that I loved. That stuff goes in my backpack," she said. "My thought process is if anything goes wrong, or it doesn't arrive in time, I've got time to buy new clothes."

Laura, a public speaker and trainer, said her appearance mattered when she was working. "I need to look good. Suit jackets, trousers, all sorts - I threw it all in, dresses as well," she said.

She said she planned to use the same posting method when she returned from the trip, and had been amazed by the reaction to her post. "There are always trolls whenever anything goes that big and people are always negative, but overall I've never been called a genius so much in my life."

[Witham Bobby]

Highly reminiscent of the old PLA - Passengers Luggage in Advance - system.

You'd take your luggage to the departure station a day or two before you travelled.  Dropped it off and paid a not huge fee.  Labelled up with the destination station and PLA labels.

When you later arrived at the destination station, your lugage would be waiting for you to claim, at the parcels office at smaller stations, or the luggage office of bigger places

The luggage was conveyed by parcels services.  Either dedicated parcels trains (remember those?), or in the guards van of passenger trains

[PrestburyRoad]

PLA also included the additional option of collection and delivery, which made it a door-to-door service.  I remember using this when I was a student in the early 1970s and my parents had no other way of getting my trunk to and from university at the beginning and end of each academic year.  Going further back, my mother used the same service and the very same trunk in the same way in the 1930s.  I still have the trunk stored away in my garage.

[bobm]

I did a variation of that on my All Line Rover tours, posted my clothes home as used them.   In theory it meant my luggage got lighter as I went, in practice the space was filled by souvenirs.

[Ralph Ayres]

To me it sort of makes sense that it's cheaper that way. The clothes have several days to be carried by the most cost-effective and efficient means rather than space having to be provided at the same time as the passenger is travelling.  It's clearly less convenient though and I'm glad the railways haven't generally tightened up on luggage carrying, although Lumo have started down that slippery slope.

[Noggin]

I knew a US management consultant who did something similar in the 1990s when he was on road trips in order to travel light.

He'd only pack a few overnight things and spare underwear, FedEx-ing clean shirts to himself at the hotels he was staying in along the way.

Carbon Footprint? We didn't really think of that back then.

[grahame]

To me it sort of makes sense that it's cheaper that way. The clothes have several days to be carried by the most cost-effective and efficient means rather than space having to be provided at the same time as the passenger is travelling.  It's clearly less convenient though and I'm glad the railways haven't generally tightened up on luggage carrying, although Lumo have started down that slippery slope.

I see this morning that Lumo are saying

We’ve achieved a new record in reducing carbon emissions today, operating the highest capacity domestic intercity train in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)!

The sold-out service had the potential to carry 772 customers in each direction between Edinburgh, Newcastle and London - that’s more than 1,540 people onboard the record-breaking return service.

That's a 10 car train - for comparison 2 x class 800 GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train - replacement for HSTs (manufactured by Hitachi in Kobe, Japan)) coupled provide 652 seats.  I appreciate that Lumo is standard class only and I have not (yet?) tried them - how are they for luggage, cycle, pushchair, wheelchair and seat pitch?