Your flight leaves in three hours. Your zipper broke three seconds ago. How are you going to get your massive suitcase back to Topeka without your bathing suit winding up in the cargo hold on an A380? The answer is simple: use plastic wrap.

It’s nowhere near a permanent solution, but if you’ve got a broken zipper and you’re looking to close your luggage for the duration of a flight, a roll of plastic wrap is the perfect answer to a difficult problem. This problem and solution come directly from Reddit where user mr_notlob wrote:

So, zipper slider on my luggage bag broke and I cannot replace it – I don’t have a replacement slider. At this point I don’t want to buy a new bag and I need this bag one last time for trip home. I can buy duck tape and I have some superglue.
I don’t care how it would look like, I just need it not to fall apart for a day.
Thank you!

The answers included everything from ratchet tie-downs to superglue, but the consensus was definitely plastic wrap. This is what some of the top responders had to say:

SomeCrazyG:

Regular old kitchen plastic wrap. Tie the start of it to the handle of the bag, wrap around and around until you use up the roll, the tie the tall to the handle. Way easier to undo than duct tape.

mrjgp:

This is the best. So I’m a bellhop and many people come from Brazil to shop where I live bc the savings pay for their trip. (Disney vaca) they each go home with 50 lb bags of luggage and they heavily wrap it in clear plastic wrap. (To minimize theft once back in their country) I’d recommend doing this and why not do some duct tape as well for piece of mind.

555nick:

Saran Wrap / cling wrap – seriously. It’ll hold if you do it enough.

Or buy ratchet tie-downs from large chain hardware store (like a Home Depot in the States) that’s also available where you are headed. Keep the packaging & receipt. Then Saran Wrap the whole thing. Lastly return the tie-downs once you arrive?

It’s a cheaper variation on those wrapping services you find at major airports. Instead of paying someone major $$$ to wrap your bag for you, just stop at a nearby supermarket and buy a box of Saran Wrap/Cling Wrap/plastic wrap. A 100ft. roll will cost slightly more than $2 and you can travel with the peace of mind that your bag and the possessions within will arrive safely — as long as TSA doesn’t decide to cut off the wrap to see inside. When you get home, just take the bag to a tailor or a shoe/luggage repair specialist and have them fix the zipper. Duct tape would obviously be another solution, but as mentioned above, it’ll leave a lot of residue on your luggage. With plastic wrap, you won’t have to worry about any residue.

If your luggage is truly beyond repair, the Redditors have another solution: cardboard boxes.

NeverEnufWTF:

Toss the luggage in the dumpster, get a cardboard box and some tape, mail the box to your destination. Way cheaper than paying baggage fees on an airline.

Same applies even if you want your stuff to stay with you. “Cardboard box” is the official luggage of nearly every international traveler from a 2nd world country. Go hang out at the baggage carousel in the LAX international terminal if you don’t believe me.

QuinLabRat:

True!! I spent 3 months working in America as a teenager and boxed up my stuff and posted to my final destination and then just checked it at the airport !!

And that, my friends, is how you deal with a broken zipper while you’re on vacation.

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