I Tried Sneaking Onto Budget Airlines 4 Times With An Oversized Bag

I Tried Sneaking Onto Budget Airlines 4 Times With An Oversized Bag

i tried to sneak my oversized bag 
onto Ryanair and Wizz Air four times see budget airlines will charge you 
for everything and once you start adding extras they can actually 
cost more than a normal airline the seat selection onboard 
dining priority boarding but the thing they charge for more 
than anything else is your luggage they give you this much space and 
if your bag is even just a little too big you could get hit with a fee 
that’s many times more than your ticket 30 50 70 even €100 but if you do manage to avoid paying for any 
extras budget airlines can be shockingly cheap so is it really even possible to fly them without 
paying anything extra even on more than just a quick weekend trip i realized there was only 
one way to find out so I went ahead and booked myself some tickets on two of the world’s most 
hated budget airlines Ryionaire and WhizAir and I mean let’s just have a look what people say 
about them callum from the UK said he’d rather walk than take Ryionaire oliver from Costa 
Rica calls them an organized scam of Wizzair raza from Sweden says “Never ever again.” And 
Alysia from Ukraine she says “Whair isn’t just the worst airline ever but the worst company 
ever.” Reading those kinds of reviews you’d think I was out of my mind for even considering 
stepping on board but of course with the promise of saving tons of money I didn’t let that stop 
me maybe I should have read a few more reviews because while I was traveling one of Ryan’s 
worst incidents in recent history happened but we’ll talk about that later to find out the 
truth though I knew one flight on each airline just wouldn’t cut it so I flew four times twice on 
each airline and brought a bag that’s technically too big by both of their carry-on rules the goal 
sneak this aboard all four flights without paying any extra fees if I get caught I’ll owe a massive 
fee but if I make it through I’ll get all four flights for less than a single check bag on many 
airlines along the way I’ll share some hacks that I’ve learned to beat budget airlines at their own 
game after all flying budget airlines hundreds of times before is one of the key reasons I’m able 
to keep traveling around the world all the time so buckle up hit that like button and if all goes 
well we’re in for a smooth ride four times in a row my first flight was on WhizAir from Berlin 
Germany to Tana Albania once I’d made my way to the airport and gotten through security it was 
time to face the first test i’d already measured my bag after packing and knew it was a little 
too big but just how much whizzer’s underseat carry-on is 40x 30x 20 cm just a little bit more 
generous than Ryanire’s which we’ll see later in the video on its side my bag almost fits but it’s 
a few centimeters too wide upright it becomes too tall and too wide and WhizAir’s maximum weight is 
10 kg luckily I at least met the standard there after all my bag was not full of rocks but it was 
time to head to my gate and attempt to get my bag on the first flight by the way I avoided using the 
bag sizer at my boarding gate that’s an easy way for the airline to notice your bag is too big so 
here I am in line and it’s looking like they’re checking people real good today let’s see i can 
already see over here on the right side the gate agents already stopped a few different people 
even with backpacks to check them this time it might have actually paid off not to pay extra for 
priority but in the meantime our plane has just pulled up over there it’s an A321 which is the 
biggest airplane that Whiz Air flies hey [ __ ] it and I have made it through just waiting to 
actually be able to board over my plane over there but usually once you’ve had your boarding 
pass scanned you’re almost always good and these planes often do six seven eight even maybe 
nine flights a day depending on the flight time because they turn them around really quick here 
basically for budget airlines like this the name of the game is to spend as little time on the 
ground as possible and as much time in the air flying and making money and just one last short 
hurdle before I’m officially able to board that is without paying any extra fees and I’ve got 
seat 16A which technically on your boarding pass on this aircraft will tell you to board in 
the front but I can see the line in the back is just a little bit shorter and since they decided 
to separate me and my wife but just by like two rows since her boarding is in the back I’m 
going to go with the back too and just a few more steps before I’m officially on board with my 
bag and my jacket and good to go to Tana Albania and this often can mean lowc cost airline 
also means that flight attendants pay maybe just a little bit less attention to you 
when you board which when there’s super strict baggage rules is probably a good 
thing well I’ve made it over here to 16C there’s actually a ton of space up above but I 
just thought I’d keep my bag down since all the stuff I need to use during the flight is in 
there anyway and I mean it really fits like a charm this feels better than other Whiz 
Air flights I’ve been on too to be honest there’s a nice little space here to store your 
stuff and the fast turnarounds means they don’t really have much time to clean if any so but of 
course the most important thing flight one out of four with slightly oversized baggage check you 
can read all about their fees on zer.com or do they just prefer to be called Whiz who knows it 
was their birthday though soon enough we pushed back and headed off over to our takeoff runway 
and although whiz did purposefully separate my wife and I because we didn’t want to pay for 
seats those were some pretty nice views so we cruised on down south and soon enough we were 
almost in Tana and it’s a completely unsound flight smooth rolling and who doesn’t love a 
window but once I get over to Tana I’ll have another wizard flight to do bit of a shorter one 
over to Pescata Italy where we can get more of an idea of how Wiz Airbag enforcement looks at 
well more than one airport i nearly forgot here we are just about to enter our final descent 
into Tana airport just flying over Montenegro still actually and I remembered I’d actually 
packed another bag in my small bag a large bag so while certainly not mandatory if 
you want to make your space go even farther on lowcost airlines like this 
just bring a collapsible bag like this it’s maybe double or triple the size of your small 
bag put it inside of your small bag and the second you’re on board pull out the larger bag put 
your small bag in it and you’re good to go actually I’ve never been to Albania before but 
I guess I’m not going to be needing this jacket until my next stop so I’ve been over here in 
Albania for a few days and it’s just about time for me to go take my second Whiz Air flight 
to give them another test just to see well how consistent they are really are they going to 
let me on the plane with my slightly oversized bag or not you can see this bag looks a lot 
bigger than it might have looked before when I showed it to you because at the very bottom is 
my jacket which is taking up about 1/3 of this 25 L backpack you can see I’ve also got that second 
black bag that I started with that’s also just like a little tiny bit oversized as we saw over at 
Berlin airport but this trip that I’m taking well I’m not just traveling to show you four different 
lowcost carrier flights i guess I’m just not that much of a massochist i’m not Noel Phillips nope 
along the way I’m getting out and exploring each country that I’m stopping in spending five nights 
in Albania three nights in Italy and a few nights in Lithuania but for about a week and a half 
long trip I think I’ve pretty much found the perfect packing equation that allows you to avoid 
having to pay any extra fees while taking longer trips using budget airlines wherever you happen 
to be in the world so I made another video for you that goes through exactly what I pack when flying 
budget airlines that you might want to watch after this one but for now we do have a flight to catch 
it’s now time to head back to the airport and give WhizAir a second try before we try out Ryan Air 
twice after that will I manage to board this next flight without having to pay anything even though 
my bag is slightly oversized there’s only one way to find out since I had some extra time at the 
airport I thought I’d give the lounge a try it might not have been the snazziest but they had 
plenty of Albanian food and drinks and yeah I only paid about €10 for this Whiz Air flight I’m about 
to take by the way we’ll go over all the prices of each flight that I’m taking though at the end 
of the video so stay tuned for that but it really doesn’t matter how much you paid or what airline 
you’re flying you can access this lounge over at Tyran airport with priority pass but here I am 
even though it’s a warm climate with my jacket on and my backpack all ready to go over to the 
airplane and my plane was coming in from somewhere in the Netherlands and it arrived just a little 
bit late but over there you can see Pascar is on the board that’s going to be my gate just right 
over there and I’ve got exactly the same stuff in my backpack is what I have back in Berlin so 
let’s see if I can get through this easy as well just holding us it’s okay thank you okay so far 
no problem at all and you can see my Whiz Air plane that just landed is parked and looks like 
it’s already deployed from the people that came in from the Netherlands and we should be boarding 
soon i thought maybe that given that this is kind of a whiz air hub they might have I don’t know 
a little bit more control going on but that does not seem to be the case but again I’ve still 
got a little bit of distance to walk before I’m officially on board with my bag and we’re boarding 
and this time they’ve separated my wife and I all the way between the front and the back of the 
plane so I’ll be in seat 34F with a window at least and Rosa gets seat 5C and looks like all 
cleared so this time she’s going to board in the front for real and I’ll board in the back i’ll 
see you later and yeah so far that’s two for two well I’ve got just some stairs to walk up again 
but I’ve never seen any baggage control basically after showing your boarding pass [ __ ] it’s 
loud here and yeah another thing that you’re officially not supposed to do is use the overhead 
compartments unless you pay for like the full size carry-on but in practice the flight attendants 
will always invite you to do so when there’s space so that’s probably the first place this jacket’s 
going to go assuming there’s no space because it’s like 80 something Fahrenheit or in the upper 20s 
and Celsius it’s quite warm here but 5 minutes of wearing a jacket is a small price to pay to avoid 
30 50 70 even €100 in fees for having a larger bag than you’re supposed to wow i can see my wife 
Rosa still hasn’t been able to board either and Whiz Air’s arch nemesis well actually maybe 
every traveler’s nemesis ryan Air is just rolling on by in the next part we’re going to see what 
it’s like aboard two Ryan Air flights but as for WhizAir it looks like they’ve let me on board 
with no issues at all thanks WhizAir how are you today how are you good man 34s lots of space up 
there ladies and gentlemen welcome on this Whiz Air flight with destination this is really a first 
whiz air we are delayed because there is a hole in the tarmac apparently and the airport has to 
figure out how to get this airplane to push back out well I don’t know like 10 seconds after 
saying that they pushed back i didn’t see any hole did look like there was like some fixes in 
the cracks but yeah should be off almost on time not quite but almost and what can I say the bag 
fits like a charm there was space for my jacket and we’re just about to take off and head over 
to Italy here we go my second Whiz Air flight was pretty much exactly like my first just 
shorter they purposefully separated me and my wife again and the views of the Adriatic Sea 
were as nice as ever so cruising along and not quite but almost on time but as it turns out two 
flights with Bizair two flights with no issues getting my slightly oversized bag on board so 
is Ryan a stricter or could they care even less let’s get ourselves over to Italy so we can hop 
on board and find out thank you i’ll see you on Italia ryan Air time and my track to the airport 
today is just about as easy as could be because I was just staying right over across that street 
and this is the airport i’ve got a few snacks but other than that it’s just the same backpack the 
same jacket and I guess I’m ready to go on this 2-hour Ryan Air flight i don’t know the last few 
times I flew Ryan Air the vibe was definitely that there weren’t that many people working at the gate 
they were a little delayed and nobody was checking anything even less so than Whiz Air at least 
that’s how it felt to me but that was already a few months back so let’s see what it’s like today 
flying Ryan Air and then we’ll see one more Ryan Air flight after this one just to verify assuming 
I do get on with this bag that Ryan Air is more or less actually pretty chilled out let’s go ahead 
over here in the airport and see this is a really small airport a lot of the businesses aren’t even 
open my flight’s at like 9:25 a.m it’s basically just Ryan Air at this airport almost solely 
there’s like one Whiz Air flight which I came here on and then that’s really it on the other side of 
the airport is my gate and one other gate with a flight that’s departing around the same time today 
I’m flying over to Konas Lithuania the second biggest city in Lithuania not the first biggest 
that’s Villuse or Villuse as some like to call it but I did give the Ryionaire sizer over there a 
test and surprisingly my bag kind of sort of fits in it the thing about Ryionaires that I found they 
just I don’t know i’ve never seen them enforcing stuff like down to the centimeter and technically 
the size of your not fulls size carry-on that you’re allowed to bring on with any ticket is 40x 
20x 25 cm which is even slightly smaller than the underseat carry-on that Whizzer lets you have 
but in action I don’t know we’re going to see how about that the thing is though well I’ve 
gone a little bit under the weather honestly traveling over in Italy a little bit out of it 
i just can’t eat that fast so I’ve got my bag of food still and it doesn’t fit in my regular bag 
so I’m just going to see if I can’t roll through with that let’s see from my view it looks like 
there’s just one agent working the boarding gate and she’s not too concerned about bags so that 
seems like a good sign let’s see so far so good i guess my suspicions were correct i got through 
and it’s just a short walk on the tarmac over to our plane and the line is moving now I’ve got to 
say I’ve got like a false sense of confidence at this airport cuz there’s like nobody working 
for Ryan Air here which means there’s nobody to enforce the bag rules but you know what they 
say about confidence so let’s get inside the plane and then we’ll see you can really see just 
how small this airport is there’s just two Ryan airplanes here at the moment and there’s just a 
little bit of a wait over here before we could actually board but they just started boarding the 
first few people and here we go looks like another roaring success here three for three almost by the 
way Ryan Air flies two types of planes this is the older 737 and actually the plane parked next to 
it is a 737 Max their newer airplane and you can see I believe just for tax purposes this is like 
operated by Malta Airra they’ve got a bunch of different like tax subsidiaries based in different 
countries i think Buzz and Poland i couldn’t tell you all of them though and here we’ve made it on 
board i believe I’m really lucky with all three of these flights because I don’t know I’ve been on 
some Ryan Air flights that have been a lot tighter than this and they’ve been a lot longer than 
this this is only like a 2-hour flight pretty acceptable i even got my sandwich that I made for 
myself this morning with me and you can see my bag fits just fine and I’ve been living in Germany 
for one too many years because I’m wearing socks under my sandals yes I am well as much as I do 
like my seat my wife’s seat is apparently in the emergency room so I looked out i’m in row four 
seat 4A my wife got row 16 seat 16A but there is quite a bit of empty space up here so maybe just 
maybe we’ll have the chance to sit together in uh row 4 without paying anything for it let’s see 
if boarding complete doesn’t get called pretty soon oh yeah i can see Ryionaires taking up their 
steps that they bring around with them everywhere by the way those steps as much as I guess everyone 
just kind of hates walking up and down them i mean look they’re really steep they’re one of the big 
reasons that Ryan Air is able to like stop at an airport for 20 or 30 minutes then board and then 
keep going to the next airport watch that’s like a matter of 10 seconds right there so yeah Ryan 
Air is definitely that airline everybody loves to hate i mean sometimes for a good reason but today 
it is turning out to be a pretty solid experience without having to pay for anything extra at all 
row 4 has got solid leg room and the views from the window seat at takeoff were pretty beautiful 
this might actually be the nicest Ryan Air flight I’ve ever even been on of course they do sell 
some food on board too but you really can’t beat an Italian quote that you made yourself i mean 
these are some premium products i got Mortidellity Pistakio i got out the quality tower high quality 
cooked procuto and a little bit of proolone on the bottom an Italian cold cut sandwich with views 
of Croatia sitting in row four means being among the first to deplain too just like Whizzer 
Ryan purposely will give people on the same ticket seats away from each other to entice them 
to pay for selecting seats together but honestly depending on what they’re charging I’d actually 
consider paying a little extra to sit up here in the future so far the WhizAir and the Ryan Air 
experience are all in all quite similar they both let me bring oversized bag on board without 
issue three times in a row and while all of the long printed rules on their website or when 
you buy a ticket might seem a bit intimidating in reality when you get on board these airlines 
don’t usually have like a ton of people working for them and everyone stays pretty busy working 
for a lowcost carrier is definitely not an easy job and definitely not one I could imagine myself 
doing for example but honestly although contact is minimal all three flight crews have been 
comparable to what you’d find on any fullcost carrier in Europe you know British Airways Air 
France Luansa whatever so just for good measure we’ve got one more short Ryan Air flight to take 
just to see if two times in a row on Ryan Air I’ll be able to board with my oversized baggage or not 
so once we get over to Lithuania and on board our fourth lowcost flight we can go over exactly 
how much each of these four flights cost as well as some other observations and details I’ve 
noticed along the way when it comes to flying lowcost carriers like WhizAir and Ryionaire 
in Europe without paying for extra baggage now one concern I often hear about budget 
airlines in general definitely Ryan Air and Whizzer is people worried about how safe those 
kind of airlines actually are the obvious answer is that in the EU the safety standards 
are as high as could be so they’re very very safe they’re just as safe as any other 
airline basically but there is a little bit of turbulence on this flight which really 
doesn’t necessarily relate back to safety in any way but all that said just a few days 
before I’m taking this flight Ryionaire did have an emergency landing on a flight that was 
departing from Berlin bound for Milan airport I believe and yeah it just flew right into 
like the middle of a very very strong storm that I would assume air traffic control 
would usually tell you not to fly into so not exactly sure what happened there did put 
me a little bit on edge boarding this flight but the truth about airline safety on any airline 
operating in the EU is that it’s very very high but after a few days in Lithuania it was time to 
make my way over to Vilnoose airport for my fourth and final attempt to sneak my oversized bag on 
board and here I am at my fourth and final airport same backpack same jacket but in Lithuania during 
the summer this jacket actually comes into good use of course when you’re traveling around to 
different climates it’s always a good idea to have some kind of not too light but also not 
too heavy jacket like this one and the plus when you’re flying on budget airlines like Ryan 
Air is that there are pockets that you can kind of just sneak things into well all I’ve got in 
here is a tissue but the idea would be like to take the camera that I’m recording this on put 
that in this pocket or take an extra pair of shoes and put them in the pocket and then you can still 
get on board with your one slightly oversized bag but on that topic it is still slightly oversized 
there is still a chance the Ryan Air is going to charge me a €75 fee so far three out of three but 
there’s one more flight left to go and let’s see if I can get on board successfully without having 
paid any extra money to these lowcost carriers and one observation right off the bat there you can 
see is one of the Ryionaire check-in counters you want to avoid those at all costs because 
that just increases your chances of having a bunch of time up there talking to someone 
with them constantly having the chance to take a look at the size of your bag basically 
the less interaction you have in person with the airline the better plus there is the fact 
that a lot of those airlines such as Ryan Air will actually charge you a fee to check in at the 
desk you’ve got a checkin in their app anyway they don’t want you to talk to them you don’t want to 
talk to them don’t go to the check-in desk let’s go ahead through security here though so once 
I’d made my way through security with time to spare I headed over to the airport lounge and 
again I’ve just made a nice little stop in the lounge despite flying a lowcost carrier like Ryan 
Air i just entered with Priority Pass and it’s a solid little lounge which also reminded me another 
great thing to keep in your pockets it’s a little snack by the way I end up over here at Villus 
airport quite a lot a few times a year usually and they just redid their terminal it’s sparkly 
and kind of nice and this is my gate A4 and I actually made the mistake of leaving the lounge a 
few minutes too early so we’re just sitting over here for a few minutes but you can see a lot of 
people could not resist the urge to already start lining up which in my experience is a pretty big 
no no when it comes to flying any lowcost airline well first off our aircraft is going to land here 
in 2 minutes so there’s no way boarding is going to happen anytime that soon but if you’re at 
all concerned about the fine details of your baggage size or weight being checked if you’re 
one of the first in the line and the plane is not delayed the chances of you being checked are 
just going to be a lot higher naturally but here you can see the plane just rolled up over here so 
once I get the plane deplaned over here we can go ahead and hopefully get on board without any extra 
payments involved and it is not a good sign and I can see someone is actually getting checked 
it doesn’t have a bag that’s much larger than mine o that could mean as much as €75 a little 
worried that my luck might have run out I made my way over to the boarding line and I’m almost 
there let’s see how this goes and my best guess is that that person had two separate bags and that 
was the reason they were stopped but let’s see good thank you few 1 2 3 4 check well almost 
i do actually have to really get on board there hopefully I’ll be okay though once 
we’re on board we can go over exactly what I paid for all four of these flights and 
a few final thoughts about flying budget airlines like this around Europe with slightly 
oversized baggage or without slightly oversized baggage and this time I happen to have the most 
wonderful seat on the plane the middle seat in row 11 just kidding it’s not that wonderful but 
there’s such a huge line to board via the front of the plane cuz often people just don’t realize 
that you can board via the back of the plane and although my ticket recommends that I board via 
the front of the plane the back of the plane obviously has a lot less of a line so I made it 
on board my second Ryan Air flight and Rosa took her not middle seat while I headed up front for 
my middle seat it turns out someone had beat me to 11E though because they also wanted to sit 
with their travel partner so I swapped seats to 9E luckily the flight time was pretty short 
since this was a much more cramped experience than on my first Ryan Air flight but there’s 
one place where you can get something for free at Ryionaire let’s go check that out and I’ll tell 
you how much I paid for all four of these flights and this right here is basically the only free 
thing that you get when flying Ryan Air at least for now the bathroom may not be that clean but 
it’s definitely free but the question at hand here now is how much should I pay for all four 
of these flights well for the first flight from Berlin over to Tyrana I paid €73.69 and then 
from Tyrana over to Pesca it was quite a bit cheaper than that one it was just a little bit 
over €10 and then my third flight from Pescata to Konas cost me €25.65 and finally this short 
Ryan Air flight from Vilnus over to Berlin cost €402 so all in all for right around €150 I was 
successfully able to take four flights without paying any extra fees at all mission accomplished 
obviously this is just my experience on four flights and baggage rules are rules if you break 
them no matter how silly they are airlines can hold you accountable if they actually will 
is a different story so yeah that’s pretty much what it’s like to fly with WhizAir and 
Ry Air on these four flights but what do you think are budget airlines a necessary evil or 
just something that you’d avoid at all costs definitely drop a comment down below with what 
you’ve got to say about that and if you did like this video please don’t forget to give it a like 
that helps get it to as many people as possible

I took 4 flights on Ryanair and Wizz Air—two of Europe’s strictest budget airlines—attempting to sneak on with a bag that was too big to fly for free. No priority boarding, no extra baggage fees, and definitely no upgrades, just the cheapest possible ticket on each flight.

Can you really travel with an oversized underseat bag and avoid paying anything extra? In this video, I put it to the test: 4 flights, one bag, lots of travel hacks along the way, and a challenge to outsmart the airlines at their own game.

💼 Want to see how I packed for this trip with just one underseat bag? Watch this next: https://youtu.be/9XfFKzk3xVY

#budgettravel #ryanair #wizzair #travelhacks

MORE VIDEOS:
🌎 100s More travel videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlHFWceWhDiT1IRpAGBoPx1fJjVRGlOmf
💸 Travel tips and hacks to save money: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlHFWceWhDiSyjUh9srpeM8Dz9kV59w14
🇮🇹Videos from Italy https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlHFWceWhDiQJlFmFqTiXhYaM0VqF0OZO

➡️More about me:
I’m David and I make travel videos. I’m focused on sharing the most interesting and insightful travel experiences with you, from hidden gems to luxury hotels. Plus I’ve got a bit of an obsession with finding the best travel deals, so I like to share my mastery of travel hacking when there’s a good reason to. Everybody deserves the chance to travel, so I’m here to inspire you and share the expert travel advice you need.

00:00 Budget airlines
00:32 Is it possible to avoid extra fees on budget airlines?
01:58 1st Wizz Air flight
06:21 How consistent are budget airlines?
07:41 2nd Wizz Air flight
12:05 1st Ryanair flight
20:00 2nd Ryanair flight
24:53 The only free thing on Ryanair & how much I paid