It takes a while to play around with it, and figure out how to get the most air out of it. Might have to kneel on it, lean on it with your whole upper body, give it a squeeze with your hands while you're kneeling on it. You'll figure it out eventually. Try different techniques. Doesn't get all the air out, not as well as a vacuum bag. I guess they recommend this for travel instead of the vacuum bags because they assume you are going to a hotel or something, and you won't have access to a vacuum, but some of those vacuum bags come with a small plastic pump, which works (it just takes some time and sweat). So compared to the vacuum bags, this doesn't do that good of a job at getting the air out, but it's easier, not as much work as the vacuum bag with a small hand held pump. (The perfect product would be the combination of the 2.) The vacuum bags look like they wouldn't wrinkle the items placed in them as much either, since you're not rolling them up. Product description claims something ridiculous like it reduces the volume of the items placed in it by 80%. No, unless maybe you're putting a pillow in it. It saves a little room in the luggage, not that much, definitely nothing even close to 80%. Unless I misread it, and maybe they meant it reduces the volume to 80% of the original size.It DOES save space. I bought these because my autistic son wanted to take his stuffed bear on vacation, which is really too big for traveling, but I got it into one of these pouches and cut the size of it by half. Orange Bear can now travel by plane. You get a good amount of bags for the price, and once you start using them, you will use them all the time. Shirts can get wrinkled, but who cares?? You're on vaca! :)We just drove cross country with our van packed to the brim and used these to pack our clothes and some of our linens for the trip. I was very impressed with how much air you can get out of them and how compact they get. It’s not quite as much as the ones that use a vacuum but you can get pretty close. They seem very durable, they got thrown around, opened and sealed repeatedly, and folded up a good bit at each of our stops on our 12 day road trip and we didn’t have a single one get a hole. Overall very impressed and would definitely buy again.I like these bags and they are useful for travel, particularly for return travel with dirty clothes. I don't know if they save a lot of room with neatly folded and rolled clothes, though, because they create a lot of dead space in between them in your luggage once they are rolled up. They are useful for jackets and sweatshirts that are bulky. They might be a bit harder to use for the elderly because they are hard on your knuckles to roll them to squeeze the air out. They are a bit thinner and a lot more inexpensive than the name-brand "space-bags" that used to be sold, but appear to work as well. We'll see how long they last.I recently used these for the first time on a trip through SE Asia. I was able to pack enough clothes for at least 2 outfits a day for 2 weeks - 2 WEEKS!! - using these space saving bags in a medium size checked bag. i was amazed. I even brought along an extra one for dirty laundry. One of the bags did leak and wouldn't stay compressed but I carried a back up with me so I just switched it out. Yes, your clothes do get wrinkly with these but I can live with that. I appreciate the different size options, too. Would highly recommend and will use again.I was able to fit two weeks’ worth of clothes—including workout clothes, workout shoes, dressy clothes, regular clothes, pajamas, etc., AND a hairdryer with a diffuser attachment—into a carryon bag. I didn’t want to check my luggage for international travel if I could avoid it.I will say, it requires a hilarious amount of huffing, puffing, grunting, and swearing to get the air out of the bags. I ended up pushing my knees on it as I rolled the bag, and then full on sitting on it to flatten it out (rolling it has a tendency to bunch everything into a ball).The plastic is thin, and the zip tabs fall off, but they do the job. I kneel on them to force the air out. I borrowed a much more substantial bag from a friend, and it was even better, but I could not find a similar one on Amazon.Was able to pack more clothes and still have room in my carryon for my shopping adventures! Makes organizing simple too. Bathing suits and coverups in one, day clothes in one, dresses in another. Took an extra one for new clothes I knew I would buy. Lol! Compresses easily. Just zip closed and start rolling. Don’t overfill or you’ll have a harder time.Easy to use and great for organising my clothes on a long tripUsed only once and the bag was already ripped