What TikTok Gets Right and Wrong About Travel Hacks
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Here's your Money Briefing for Tuesday, January 14th. I'm J.R. Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. Sweet-talking the airline gate agent to get an upgrade. Mixing yourself an espresso martini before boarding your flight. They're among scores of shortcuts and hacks on social media.

Then there's the game of check-in chicken. Oh, this one drives me crazy. Check-in chicken is this idea where if you don't have a seat assignment, there's a chance as airlines shuffle people around in the 24 hours leading up to the flight, by the time you check in and they assign your seat, you might end up with like an extra legroom seat. We'll talk to Wall Street Journal travel columnist Dawn Gilbertson after the break.

Our columnist Dawn Gilbertson sorted through travel hacks that many social media users have posted. So what works and which could get you in trouble? She joins me now.

Dawn, on TikTok, for example, the travel hacks hashtag surged more than 90% last year. Why have these posts become so popular? First of all, who among us doesn't want to save money, travel more glamorously, pack a little better? So the content is really rich. And also, these people know that that's what people want to get, so they're serving us more and more of it. Sometimes when I go to the airport, I see passengers ask the gate agent if there are any upgrades available for first class.

They almost always say no. But some people online claim that dressing nicely or sweet-talking the agent might do the trick. Is that likely to work?

No. I mean, 99% of the time, probably not. I mean, unless you have super high status in the airline. If you're just a regular traveler with no status on the airline who has a basic economy ticket, it doesn't matter what the heck you're wearing or how nice you are to the gate agent. Your chances of scoring a free upgrade to first class are slim to almost none. Some people have posted about something called check-in chicken. What is that?

Oh, this one drives me crazy. Check-in chicken is this idea where if you don't have a seat assignment, don't check in right at the 24-hour mark. Wait, because there's a chance as airlines shuffle people around in the 24 hours leading up to the flight, by the time you check in and they assign your seat, you might end up with like an extra legroom seat. There was a TikToker in Europe last year who went viral on Twitter.

By explaining her hack, this was a discount airline in Europe. Once online check-in begins, she keeps an eye on the seat map and watches all these middle seats and other seats disappear. And then she hits check-in. And in one of the cases that she reported on, she got an extra legroom seat and didn't pay anything extra. But if you wait longer and longer, don't you run the risk of getting a really undesirable seat? Of course, especially on full flights. The thing is, on these airlines, the budget airlines that don't assign seats and you don't pay for them,

your chances of landing in the middle are pretty high, and people buy tickets knowing that. So there's nothing inherently wrong with trying this, but I don't want to get people's hopes up in thinking that, well, I'm going to wait until the last minute, and I'm going to end up with an exit row aisle. It's nice to settle into your seat with a nice cup of coffee, but I've seen some posts of people buying coffee before boarding.

Then they spike it with all kinds of alcohol. So why did you write that this trick could land them in hot water? This is the old espresso martini hack that really took off in 2024. And it's billed as a great thing for bachelor parties, bachelorette parties. It saves you money. You buy Starbucks espresso. You pour some liquor in there. You put your cap back on. This could land you in hot water because the FAA rules prohibit drinking any alcohol you bring on board. How about getting upgrades when you're checking in at a hotel?

A guy on TikTok encourages people to slip the check in clerk a 20. Are they allowed to accept extra payments? It depends on the hotel chain, the hotel. Obviously, tipping is a huge part of the hospitality culture. I mean, I've never come across a hotel where they say we can't accept tips unless it's, you know, a luxury hotel where everything is included. But this happens all the time. People will go to the front desk and casually have a 10 or a 20 or even bigger tip.

in hopes of getting a room upgrade. I see so much disappointment in these different forms. People like, hey, I tried the $20 hack or I emailed using that template in the Facebook group asking nicely for an upgrade for my son's graduation. And they're just so disappointed. And so if you really have a specific room in mind or view in mind, you're probably gonna have to pay for it.

A lot of travel hacks out there have a spotty record. But what about travel tricks that do work and are legal? A lot have to do with packing. Packing lighter, packing smarter,

picking the right bag, etc. But the one that I came across in doing the research for this piece was this influencer mom was packing for her little kids and she used one of those shoe hangers we put in closets, shoe and sweater hangers. She divided the kids' outfits by day and put them in one of these things, plopped it in the suitcase, and when she got to the hotel or vacation rental, she just hung it up. You also mentioned understanding the Department of Transportation rules for passengers. Why is that a good idea?

This is a more educational side of travel TikTok, but there are places on TikTok who just explain for you when things go wrong, here are your rights. So if you're having a delay or a cancellation, you're frustrated by something, it never hurts just to scroll there. You'll come across a video that says, hey, your flight was delayed three hours. Here's what to do. Just so you're not flying blind. This is not the only source. I mean, you can go to the DOT's dashboard online and get the same information. They just help distill it for you.

Another good way to get some education from some of these social media posts is

has to do with, you know, smarter flight shopping. I came across so many videos and posts on ways to better use Google flights. But one of the ones I came across, and I saw many of these, has to do with the fact that, say you just want to go on an affordable vacation, you don't have a set destination in mind, you put in your home airport, and then you just leave the other part blank, and this map fills up, and it shows you all the places you can go and at what price.

Now let's say somebody is scrolling and sees one of these travel hacks we talked about. What should they consider before trying it out? This applies to any kind of social media post. You just need to tread carefully. None of these ones I talked about, except for the espresso martini one, are really going to get anybody in any kind of hot water. And in fact, FAA doesn't even track alcohol incidents anymore post-pandemic. So we're not talking about big, huge issues that are going to get you in trouble. It's just more a matter of setting your expectations. We

We all look at this thing and we see, oh, the best date to book a flight is Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. Take it with a grain of salt and shop around. Just because somebody has a million or two million followers, don't just assume that they know what they're talking about. That's WSJ travel columnist Dawn Gilbertson. And that's it for your Money Briefing. This episode was produced by Ariana Osborough with supervising producer Melanie Roy. I'm J.R. Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. Thanks for listening.

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