Ingenious Scheme: Woman Pretends Pregnancy to Sidestep Baggage Charges

Some people wear fewer layers of clothing to avoid paying extra baggage fees, but travel journalist Rebecca Andrews took it a step further. She was on a domestic Australian flight with Jetstar and wanted to avoid the $60 excess baggage fee. To do this, she pretended to be pregnant by making a fake baby bump out of clothes and charging cables. Andrews explained to CNN Travel that, because of her small frame, she thought pretending to be pregnant was the most believable way to carry out her plan.

However, her plan was foiled when an air steward noticed her laptop. The deception was revealed when Rebecca bent over to pick up her dropped ticket, exposing the shape of her laptop. This wasn’t her first attempt at faking a pregnancy. Andrews has double- and triple-layered her clothes many times and has occasionally faked pregnancies. This was her first attempt involving sneaking a laptop, though. She believes women have the right to do whatever they want with their bodies, including faking a pregnancy with laptop wires. Her only regret was not having a backup story in case she got caught.

Andrews was not embarrassed about the incident at all. She even provided a tutorial on how she made the fake pregnancy using the heaviest items.