Here Are All the Strategies I Use To Never Pay Baggage Fees

I can’t remember the last time I paid for a checked bag. Using a combination of strategic packing and travel perks, I’ve avoided paying baggage fees for years, even though I often fly low-cost carriers known for excessive add-on fees.

Whether traveling solo, with my husband, my friends, or with my entire family of 5, it’s become second nature for me to avoid baggage fees — and it’s saved me thousands of dollars.

I’ll share my strategies, from minimalist packing to using elite status and credit card perks, to explain how I’ve managed to skip baggage fees for so long.

Savings: How Baggage Fees Add Up

Baggage fees can add up quickly, especially when we travel as a family of 5 on multiple trips each year. Paying for bags could easily price us out of traveling as frequently as we do, and I’d much rather spend my travel dollars on airfare, hotels, experiences, and food than the privilege of carrying bags.

Let’s say we take 5 round-trip flights annually, and each of us brings a carry-on and checked bag on every flight.

If we fly Spirit Airlines, we’d pay between $29 and $75 for carry-on bags if we were to select them at booking — let’s call it $50. The checked bag fee is between $29 and $70 for the first bag, which we can also guesstimate at $50.

Roughly, we’d pay $100 each for bags each way or $200 for a round-trip flight. Multiplied by 5 people, that’s $1,000 — usually more than we’d pay for the fare and enough to make me rethink booking that flight. At 5 flights per year, that’s $5,000 in bag fees alone! 

It’s even worse on Frontier Airlines, where carry-on bags are $52 to $69 at booking and $47 to $63 for checked bags. It would be about $115 per person per flight, which puts us at $1,150 in baggage fees for a round trip and $5,750 annually.

If we were to fly basic economy with United, we’d pay $35 for carry-on bags and between $35 and $75 for checked bags, about $90 on average per person per flight. We’d face baggage fees of $900 per trip or $4,500 annually.

Minimalist Packing

Packing light is always my Plan A for avoiding baggage fees. I’m a recovering overpacker, and these days, my typical luggage is limited to a personal item.

You can carry a personal item for free with any airline — even low-cost carriers such as Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines — as long as it meets size requirements.

Saving money is a great motivator for packing light, but it’s not just about the savings. Packing light offers less stress with fewer bags and logistics to worry about, especially when traveling with kids.

Relying primarily on personal items has numerous benefits:

• I don’t have to pay for bags, which is a huge money saver.
• Navigating the airport and getting down the airplane aisle is infinitely easier when I’m only encumbered by a backpack. My hands are free for my phone, drinks, or whatever I need.
• I don’t have to worry about lost or damaged luggage because it’s always on my back or at my feet.
• I don’t have to wait at baggage claim.
• I can’t overload my bag with huge souvenirs I probably shouldn’t buy anyway.
• Packing is much simpler and less time-consuming, whether preparing for a trip or packing to head home.
• I am less concerned about rental car theft since we can generally fit all our bags in a trunk, where they’re visible from the windows.

How did we get here? My family took an 11-day trip on Southwest Airlines, where we could bring 10 checked bags plus a carry-on bag and personal item for each of us. We didn’t pack that much, but we each had a checked bag and backpack to bring on the plane. That’s 10 bags! What was I thinking?

On that trip, we hopped between various hotels, cabins, and lodges, and each time, it was a huge pain to get everything packed up and loaded again. The bags took up so much space wherever we went, and I’ll never forget the night we hauled bags uphill in the dark in bear country. I was over it and never wanted to do that again.

Since then, I’ve more or less taken the approach that if we can’t fit it into a backpack we will have to live without it. While that requires sacrifices, it’s been a breath of fresh air to mostly avoid rolling heavy bags anywhere or manage major packing sessions for 5 people at any point in our trip prep or journey home.

Here’s how I make backpack travel work for my family of 5:

• We use packing cubes to organize clothes and minimize space.
• We prioritize versatile clothing and toiletries that minimize the need for extra items.
• I plan gaps, such as not bringing an item I know I’ll want to buy there, like a souvenir hoodie or hat.
• I plan for potential laundry by always bringing detergent sheets in my toiletry bag.
• I remind my family to be mindful of space with souvenir purchases. My preferred souvenirs are enamel pins, which are cheap and easy to pack.
• We set limits on how many toys and books my kids can pack. They’re old enough to make the most of the seemingly infinite space on digital devices for entertainment.

The minimalist approach works for us 9 times out of 10. When I know we will need to bring home more stuff than we arrived with, I’ll pack an extra duffle in my backpack so we can fill it at our destination rather than traveling there with an already-full bag.

Using Status and Perks To Get Free Bags

Although I typically don’t travel with more than a backpack, I always have a plan for avoiding baggage fees when I need to carry on or check a bag. A major part of this is strategically booking flights with airlines that offer me free bags, whether through status perks, credit cards, or fare class.

I prefer to avoid checking bags unless it’s absolutely necessary, so I value perks or fares that give me free carry-on bags more highly than checked bags. Still, it’s nice to have options, and I’ll gladly use a checked bag benefit if I need it and that’s my only free option!

Here’s how I’ve gotten free bags lately:

• I had Spirit Gold status for most of 2023 and 2024, which included a free carry-on and checked bag for me as a member. I got that status by doing a status match from my Hilton Honors™ Diamond status, which I got by spending on my Hilton Honors American Express Surpass^® Card and staying at Hilton properties frequently.
• Similarly, I had Frontier Elite Platinum status for most of 2024, which I again got status matched to with my Hilton Honors™ Diamond status. My Frontier status offered a free carry-on and checked bag for me and all passengers on my itinerary.
• I sometimes fly Southwest Airlines, which offers each passenger a free carry-on and 2 checked bags. Unfortunately, Southwest is soon eliminating its 2-free-checked-bag policy.
• I have the United℠ Business Card, which gives a companion and me our first checked bags free. 

I’ve taken many flights with just a personal bag, leaving these baggage benefits unused, but I recently used my United Business card baggage benefit to bring souvenirs back from a holiday trip to Walt Disney World. I couldn’t leave our Pumbaa popcorn bucket behind, and it was an easy choice because the bag was free.

Choosing the right fare class also affects baggage fees. When I book economy tickets with United or Delta, I try to avoid basic economy fares so we can all bring carry-on bags for free. Both of these are easy to do using credit card benefits.

Booking United directly with United MileagePlus miles and my United Business card automatically funneled me into United economy class on a Saver Award, so I paid a reasonable mileage rate and avoided basic economy. Similarly, booking a Delta Air Lines flight with AmexTravel.com using the Platinum Card^® from American Express got me into Main Cabin economy for the lowest price I could find anywhere for that particular flight.

Booking flights with card benefits can offer perks beyond baggage savings. For example, I get priority boarding, 2 United Club 1-time passes annually (I can use 1 for a guest if I am present), and 25% back on United inflight and Club premium drink purchases as a United Business cardholder.

Final Thoughts

Traveling without paying baggage fees has been easy for me. By packing light, booking smart, and taking advantage of credit card and status benefits, I reduce my travel costs because I don’t have to pay baggage fees.

That allows my family to travel more often because we spend our budget on higher priorities such as airfare, lodging, food, and experiences. I’ve found that fewer and lighter bags are easier on my wallet and easier to manage while we travel. While it requires some planning and flexibility, avoiding baggage fees is doable.