An influencer’s claim that a flight attendant inspired her to clean underwear in a hotel coffee maker sparked backlash from crewmembers, who called the viral travel hack unsanitary and misleading.
Influencers seem to like throwing anonymous flight attendants under the bus.
In more than one post, influencers have shared “travel hacks” they said were given to them by flight attendants (whom they didn’t name), only to have flight attendants respond in the comments en masse, doubting the veracity of their story.
A content creator, who purports to be a fitness and nutrition coach, shared her travel hack on Instagram—which she said was inspired by a conversation with a flight attendant—where she used hotel room coffee makers to drip boiled water over her underwear as a cleaning hack, then using a hair dryer to blow-dry them ready for use. In the video, she only talks about the hack while sitting beside what appears to be a Keurig single-use coffee maker in a hotel room—she doesn’t actually demonstrate the hack using underclothing or any other type of clothing.
Many flight attendants chimed in on a popular Facebook page for crewmembers, demonstrating disgust or offering humorous quips about the purported flight attendant hack. Several crewmembers shared their own, more palatable laundry-on-the-road tips that don’t involve defiling hotel room coffee makers, from carrying laundry detergent with them to custom-designed portable wash bags for on-the-road clothes washing.
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Most questioned why the hot water in a bathroom sink wasn’t sufficient enough to wash any laundry articles in an emergency. Still others chimed in that flight attendants tend to quickly learn to plan for contingencies, and tend to leave their bases with enough clean clothes packed for the duration of their trip plus any extensions for reassignments or delays.
It’s worth noting that many hotels offer laundry services, which travelers might take advantage of in lieu of washing their clothes in the coffee pot. The service isn’t convenient for crew members, as most of them are timed around a morning laundry drop-off and early evening return (crew layovers for some airlines can be as short as 11 hours), but some hotels (particularly in larger cities) offer overnight or half-day express service for an additional fee.
In 2024, a viral TikTok video advised another hack, purportedly from a flight attendant, to crouch on an airline seat and fasten the seatbelt around their ankles. Many crewmembers took to the internet to refute as actually against the law in the United States, and that any licensed flight attendant (yes, they’re licensed by the FAA) wouldn’t have suggested that.
Similarly, flight attendants and pilots are often fastidious about the condition they leave their layover hotel rooms in, fully aware that airlines are typically given the same block of rooms night after night, so not only will their colleagues be occupying the rooms they’re vacating, they may likely return to that same room again on a future layover.
The post also raised questions about appropriate behavior in hotel rooms and treatment of hotel equipment that is going to be used by other guests. The travel hack poster even went so far as to say she no longer drinks coffee from in-room coffee makers in hotels—understanding that “she didn’t realize how many people” use the coffee makers to clean their underwear instead of for their intended purpose.
In spite of her claims that “many people” were laundering their intimates in hotel room coffee pots, not a single commenter seemed to agree this was a hack they were in the habit of using. Most shared disgust, calling the poster out for engagement farming with little more than performative rage bait.
Single-use coffee makers are a standard amenity in many hotel rooms worldwide.
