Working Girl Travel Tip: Express Lane

Now, I don't know how true this is or if the airlines have caught on but I spotted the below travel tip on Tumblr yesterday and had to share. It's worth trying, right?

From Simply Jess on Tumblr:

How To Cheat The ‘Boarding By Zone’ System

A friend of mine recently taught me this genius trick and it’s worked every single time I’ve flown. Ya’ll have to try it.

Let’s suppose you have a carry-on size bag that you don’t want to check. Baggage fees are ridiculous, waiting 30 minutes at baggage claim is annoying, and you risk the possibility of the airline losing your bag. Problem is, if you carry the bag on and you’re in boarding zone 4, all the overhead bin space will undoubtedly be full by the time you actually get on the plane, and you’ll be forced to check your bag. Not cool. Here’s where the trick comes in.

When you check-in online, be sure to have the boarding pass sent to your mobile device via text or email. It will look like the picture above. Then, when they start to call boarding zones, just board with the rest of the zone 1 people (even if you’re boarding pass says zone 4 below the QR code). Put your phone under the scanner and walk on confidently. The QR code cell phone images are not integrated with the airline zoning systems. The gate agent will NOT stop you and tell you to board with your own zone and you will NOT have to check your bag. It’s fool-proof.

Let’s just hope the airlines don’t start to catch on.