Who are we? People! What do we want? Cheap and cheerful holidays!
Good thing then, that TikTok has plenty of hacks to make our travels even more dreamy.
Over on the video-sharing app, travel aficionados, lawyers who read the fine print, and the well-connected are sharing their best tips so you can get more bang for your back.
Travel experts at Next Vacay have scoured the internet to find the biggest TikTok travel hacks that will save you money and improve your jet-setting experience in 2022.
So next time, when the opportunity arises, try one of these for yourself and see if you can upgrade your holiday (or win some compensation post-vacation).
Here are some of TikTok’s greatest vacay hacks:
The airline compensation bump
Airlines often sell more tickets than they have available - not everybody makes their flights. So, when a plane is overbooked, they’ll ask some people to get the next one. Here’s where lawyer Erika Kullberg comes in.
She shared her trick for making big money from the airlines when this happens. Usually, airlines will start bidding money for passengers to take the next flight, and if not enough people volunteer, they will resort to what’s known as involuntarily denied boarding.
If that is you and you’re rebooked onto a flight that’s more than two hours later, then you can ask four times the price of your one-way flight. But bear in mind, this is only for U.S flyers as the rule is stipulated in the US Department of Transportation.
Fret not, UK travellers can also expect some serious cashback. You can claim up to £520 in compensation if the plane is delayed and it’s the airline’s fault - depending on the distance and destination of your flight, and how late it arrived. It might have been your airline’s fault if there was a technical problem, or they overbooked.
Equally, if you’re asked to rebook a flight, you can ask the airline to provide you with vouchers or to comp a hotel stay if needed and for travel between the hotel and airport.
How much compensation you get for an overbooked flight depends on how much later the subsequent flight is and how far the distance is.
If a flight is two to four hours later and you’re flying more than 3,500km, you could get £260-£520 back, as well as your original flight refunded.
This is so simple, so genius. You can take a neck pillow or small cushion to use on the plane which won’t get weighed. Here’s the tip. Fill it with clothes and bits that don’t fit in your luggage.
Perfect for when you don’t want to pay for checked in luggage. Thank you TikTok user Anya Lakovlieva.
Have you ever been on a flight and there’s no TV to entertain you? Well, this hack allows you to watch your fave downloaded Netflix shows and film on your phone. Shared by user Shoshoni Van de Venn all you need is a thin cloth, or a paper or plastic bag (you can use the security gate ones), and place it under your phone cover and attach it to the tray in front of your seat. Voila.
Another one to trick airlines into thinking you have less luggage than you do.
Similar to the pillow hack, user Ashlin shared how she uses a string bag as storage for extra clothes to avoid paying for overweight baggage. After going through security - at which point she takes the bag off - she proceeds to put the bag on and wear a sweater on top of it. “Security doesn’t care how many bags you have. They check what it is in each bag,” she explains.
Go forth and enjoy.