How to fly with valuable Christmas gifts

Made your list and checked it twice? Don’t forget to check your packing twice, too. If you’re flying for the festive season, it can be easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of Christmas and not pack correctly, leading to issues at the airport, lost presents, and broken items.

Navigating airport security with a suitcase full of gifts can be difficult, and according to Google trend data, searches for “flying with presents” have risen by 148 per cent in the last month, so the experts at Watch Exchange London reveal how to travel with Christmas presents.

The most expensive gifts often come in the smallest packages, like jewellery and watches. Things like this don’t take up much room, so it’s definitely best to keep them safe in your hand luggage, rather than your checked luggage. This will eliminate the risk of them being lost or delayed if your suitcase goes missing.

Getting travel insurance is always a good idea, especially if you’re travelling with expensive items, to protect them against loss or damage.

This will give you a little more peace of mind if you’re transporting larger gifts that you can’t fit in your hand luggage and keep an eye on, in case they’re damaged during transit.

Save your wrapping for when you get to your destination. Aside from potentially tearing the gift wrap while travelling, your beautifully wrapped gifts might cause issues at the airport.

Security staff may have to unwrap the gifts to make sure they don’t contain any safety hazards, so save yourself the time and pack your wrapping paper and tape and wrap the presents when you arrive—just remember to not pack scissors in your hand luggage!

Airport security are trained to identify potential threats, and anything that resembles a weapon will raise red flags, and children’s toys like water guns, or things like baseball bats, can lead to issues at the airport.

Even if it’s clearly a toy, it’s best to be cautious and avoid packing anything that could be mistaken for the real thing. Leave that on the Christmas list for someone who doesn’t need to travel to buy!

Make use of your clothes to protect your gifts from damage. Roll presents up in jumpers, scarves, and socks to keep them secure, without needing to use things like bubble wrap, and a hard shell suitcase will also add more protection for delicate items, than a soft case.

Remember to allow luggage space to bring home gifts that you’ll be receiving. Remind friends and family how you’re travelling so they don’t buy you things that you won’t be able to fly with—or ask them to send your gifts in the post so you can open them when you get home.

Getting through security with certain gifts can be difficult, or even impossible. The bottle of perfume your mum wants is over 100ml?

Consider ordering it online and collecting it at the airport; this will reduce the panic of completing your shopping in duty free, and risking the specific items you’re looking for not being available. Father Christmas would probably use click and collect, too.

Of course, rather than trying to squeeze everything into your suitcase and deal with the stress of trying to get everything to your destination in one piece, you could post them directly to your destination instead.

Either do all your shopping online and send it to your destination instead of home, or pack them all up and ship them yourself. But remember to post your items early to allow for delays at this time of year.