Lost Luggage: 9 Ways to Help Get Your Bag Back
Few travel moments are more frustrating than standing at baggage claim as the carousel empties and realizing your luggage isn't coming.
The good news is that most delayed baggage is eventually reunited with its owner. If you're dealing with lost luggageโor want to make your suitcase easier to recover before your next tripโthere are several simple things you can do to help an airline identify, track, and return a missing bag.
From using a durable luggage tag and keeping your baggage claim receipt to adding an AirTag or other tracking device, here's what actually improves your chances of getting your luggage back.
1. Put Identification on the Outside of Your Bag
This sounds obvious, but it remains one of the simplest and most effective things you can do.
Airline baggage tags can tear, get damaged, or come off during handling. If the airline's barcode tag disappears, a separate luggage tag gives baggage personnel another way to identify the bag's owner.
At minimum, your luggage tag should include:
- Your name
- Mobile phone number
- Email address
You don't necessarily need to display your complete home address. For many travelers, a phone number and email address give someone handling the bag enough information to reach you.
The U.S. Department of Transportation specifically recommends labeling checked baggage with identifying contact information only.
2. Put Identification Inside the Bag Too
This is one of the most overlooked travel habits. An external luggage tag can break. A strap can come loose. A baggage label can be ripped off. Your suitcase itself, however, may still arrive at an airline baggage facility. Put another form of identification inside your luggage. It can be as simple as a brightly colored luggage tag that is easy to see, containing:
- Your name
- Mobile phone number
- Email address
You might also include your destination hotel or other temporary contact information when traveling internationally. Think of it as your backup luggage tag. If everything on the outside disappears, someone who opens the bag can still identify its owner.
3. Keep Your Airline Baggage Claim Receipt
When you check a bag, the airline generates a unique baggage identification number. Depending on the airline, you may receive it as a sticker, receipt, boarding-pass attachment, or electronically through the airline's app. Don't throw it away. That number is one of the most useful pieces of information available when trying to locate delayed baggage.
The Department of Transportation recommends keeping the baggage identification tag until you've successfully retrieved your luggage. If your bag doesn't arrive, you'll probably need that number when filing the delayed baggage report.
4. Report a Missing Bag Immediately
If the carousel stops and your bag hasn't appeared, don't assume it will magically arrive later. Report it.
Airlines generally have baggage service procedures at the airport and increasingly allow passengers to submit delayed-bag reports electronically. The sooner your bag is officially entered into the airline's tracing system, the sooner the search can begin.
Before leaving the airport, make sure you have:
- Filed a delayed baggage report
- Provided accurate contact information
- Provided your baggage tag number
- Confirmed where you want the bag delivered
- Received a claim or file reference number
Keep that reference number until the bag is returned and the case is closed.
5. Put a Tracking Device in Your Checked Bag
Technology has added another extremely useful tool to the lost-luggage toolkit. Small tracking devices such as Apple AirTags and other compatible trackers can tell you where your bag is even when the airline's system can't yet tell you very much. And this technology has become even more useful.
Some airlines now let passengers securely share the location of an AirTag or compatible Find My accessory directly with their baggage-tracing systems. American Airlines and Delta, for example, currently let customers share an item's location when reporting delayed baggage. That doesn't replace the airline's baggage tracking system, but it can provide another valuable clue.
A tracker may tell you that your suitcase:
- Never left your departure airport.
- Made it to your connecting airport
- Arrived at your destination
- Is sitting somewhere else entirely
That's a lot more useful than simply knowing, "My bag isn't here."
6. Take a Picture of Your Bag Before You Check It
This takes about five seconds and can be surprisingly useful. Before handing over your suitcase, take a picture of it with your phone. If it goes missing, instead of trying to explain, "It's kind of a medium-sized dark blue suitcase with wheelsโฆ",
you can show exactly what it looks like.
Photograph the front and back if your luggage has distinctive markings.
It's also a good idea to photograph the airline baggage tag after it's attached.
Now you'll have a visual record of both the bag and the baggage number.
7. Make Your Bag Easy to Identify
Walk through any major airport baggage claim, and you'll quickly notice something: There are a lot of black suitcases.
Anything that makes your luggage distinctive can help. A brightly colored luggage tag, unusual strap, sticker, ribbon, or other recognizable feature makes it easier for both you and baggage personnel to identify the correct bag.
It can also reduce another surprisingly common problem โ someone accidentally taking a suitcase that looks exactly like theirs. Your luggage doesn't need to look like a NASCAR race car. But it shouldn't be completely anonymous, either.
8. Remove Old Airline Baggage Tags
Before checking your bag for another trip, remove old airline barcode stickers and baggage tags. Leaving old routing information on luggage creates unnecessary clutter and can potentially confuse automated baggage-handling systems or employees trying to determine where the bag belongs. Only today's destination matters.
Your permanent personal luggage tag, of course, stays.
9. Keep Important Items Out of Checked Luggage
Even if you've done everything correctly, luggage delays are still possible. That's why certain things shouldn't go into checked baggage in the first place. The Department of Transportation recommends keeping critical, valuable, fragile, and irreplaceable items with you whenever possible.
That includes things such as:
- Medication
- Passport
- Keys
- Cash and credit cards
- Important documents
- Expensive electronics
- Jewelry
- Irreplaceable personal items
A suitcase can be replaced. Some of what's inside it cannot.
The Best Lost-Luggage Strategy Is Redundancy
No single device, tag, or trick guarantees an airline will never lose your luggage. The best strategy is giving yourself several layers of protection.
- Use the airline's baggage tag.
- Keep the baggage receipt.
- Put identification outside the suitcase.
- Put identification inside the suitcase.
- Photograph the bag.
- Add a tracking device if you use one.
- And make the suitcase easy to recognize.
- If one method fails, another may get your luggage back to you.
A Luggage Tag Still Matters
With barcode scanners, airline apps, automated baggage systems, and Bluetooth trackers, an old-fashioned luggage tag might seem unnecessary. It isn't. Technology is usefulโuntil the airline baggage label gets torn off, a device's battery dies, or someone needs to know who owns the suitcase in front of them.
That's when a clear, durable luggage tag becomes remarkably effective.
Atย Crew Tagsยฎ, we've been making personalized luggage tags since 1995, originally for airline crews and professional travelers who spend a lot of time watching bags move through airports.
Today, the same principle applies whether you fly every week or once a year: Make your luggage easy to identify and make yourself easy to contact. Because if your suitcase decides to take a different trip than you do, you want to make it as easy as possible for someone to send it home.
Fly Safe. Travel Far. Crew Tags.