OP I have to give it up to you for going out of your way to help your niece. Sounds like she's doing all she can to make it in this world so good on her. However there are still some things that don't make perfect sense. You mentioned she can expense her trip costs but will be reimbursed next month - in that case is she planning on paying for gas/food/hotel out of pocket? Surely those expenses, even for one day, could easily top $50. Additionally if this is a business trip, she must be making a reasonable salary - I'm sorry but it's just a little hard to believe that if a company is paying for her to fly somewhere that she doesn't make enough to have $50 to check her bag (until she's reimbursed, anyway). Next, it sounds like she has no idea of what can happen when trips go bad. What if the flight she's on is full, gets cancelled, and she can't get rebooked until 1-2 days later. That's a worst case scenario but very realistic with flights full at this time of year. Reminds me of that family that flew out west using buddy passes and then called the TV stations to complain when they couldn't get home because flights were full. Unfortunate but they didn't read the rules - let's hope nothing like that happens to her. And as other have mentioned, it's hard to imagine a business trip where you can't pack just a personal item plus carry-on. And hopefully she knows not to put her laptop in the carry-on in case it's gate-checked!