I’m a terrible, terrible plane sleeper so in prep for an international flight to the south Pacific I purchased 5 travel pillows: the J-Pillow, the Travelrest All-in-One Neck & Body Pillow, the BCOZZY, the SkySiesta SNUG, and the Sunany Inflatable Neck Pillow.
The J-Pillow was the worst and I immediately sent it back without use. There was no internal support and it just didn’t support my neck well which is my main issue. The Travelrest All-in-One was probably my favorite – especially if you had something to lean against like a window seat. You can also tilt the armrest partway up and lean against it. It’s a good and innovative pillow. I didn't get very creative with it. Just put it around me like a guitar strap and went to sleep. Beforehand, I had had thoughts of going around the seatback to keep me from moving forward but that didn't work out and didn't seem necessary. Another tip that helps after you have this pillow around you is to cram one or both of your forearms into it in front of you. This seems to tighten up the grip of it on your body and makes the pillow part at your neck much more stable. If I didn't do that, I found it to be a little loose no matter how much I tried to tighten the strap. The compactness of this things for travel is awesome. It's a good pillow.
My wife liked the BCOZZY and confiscated it, so I can’t comment personally on it. I can say she liked it and slept well with it (although she’s just an easier plane sleeper than I am, so the comparison isn’t quite fair). I also used the SkySiesta SNUG quite a bit and it helped as well. It has great neck support and keeps your head from tilting. Another benefit is that it covers you ears (which is very important for me) and so keeps out quite a bit of noise. It somehow made my head feel really secure and so I slept pretty well with it. The Sunany Inflatable was OK as well. I’ll say it works better if you are flying coach. If the seatback or tray in front of you is too far away, this pillow doesn’t work as well. So any seat with extra leg room (bulkhead, business, etc) will likely drastically reduce the effectiveness of this one. In coach, you can basically cram it between you and the seat in front and it’ll keep you from flopping forward.
My results were that I slept about 3 hours with one configuration (the Travelrest All-in-One) then would wake up, take more sleep medicine, and switch to another (the Sunany Inflatable). All told, after rotating pillows, I ended up getting 6-7 hours total sleep (on an 11 hour flight) which I was delighted with. Keep in mind that I’m a TERRIBLE (beyond terrible) plane sleeper. If you aren’t, you will likely have much better results than I did.
So of the 5 I bought, I would purchase again the Travelrest, SkySiesta SNUG, and the Sunany Inflatable.
