When Airlines Lose Your Luggage

Posted by Barbara Rogers Jun 14, 2007

It’s bound to happen eventually: you’ll be one of those few lost souls still standing there when the conveyor belt stops and everyone else has rolled off through the customs inspection and disappeared.

What do you do? You go to the nearby (you hope) baggage room and fill out the forms so your bag can be identified, located and reunited with you. And the good news is that it probably will be.

But what you should do really began before you ever checked in for your flight or flights. Here are some ahead-of-time tips to prevent and retrieve lost luggage:

• As you pack, lay everything on the bed or floor and take digital pictures of it. Photograph the bag from two sides, next to a yardstick. Print the pictures if possible, on full sized paper so everything shows, or take them with you digitally (in your carry-on). This is your proof of its contents, as well as a way for the airline to identify a tagless bag or its scattered contents.
• Put luggage tags inside, as well as outside each piece of luggage. Also inside, and in a conspicuous place right on top, put a complete copy of your itinerary with phone numbers, so an airline can find you when they find the bag. Carry a spare copy with you, too, since you’ll want to attach it to the lost baggage forms.
• Put something on your bag that distinguishes it from others, not just so you’ll see it, but so someone else won’t take it by mistake. This should not be something floppy that can get torn off or catch on equipment. A bright colored web belt works well.
• Even of you are changing airlines en route, try to check your luggage straight through to your destination. That way if it is lost on the first flight, it will be the airline’s responsibility to bring it to your final destination.

None of these will guarantee that you and your bags will have the same journeys, but these simple precautions can help you retrieve them.