Every year I have someone in my circle of friends and family decry how risky it is to check baggage and everyone has an unsubstantiated story of lost luggage.  While it is true that luggage can get lost, it happens far less often than is ever portrayed.  I have been traveling by airline since I was 2 years old and my luggage was “lost” twice.  At one point in my life, I traveled more as a teenager than most seasoned road warriors of today.  Statistically, you are very unlikely to have a misplaced bag and if you do experience lost luggage, it generally can be available in as little as 6 hours. 

Some time ago, I wrote this POST about luggage.  It is a collection of strategies to mitigate against lost luggage.  Read it and practice it and you’ll be in a far better position to experience a happy holiday trip.  Because of baggage fees on most airlines, many recommend shipping your gifts rather than checking a bag.  In some respects, I agree.  However, it may be *cheaper* to take a bag along with gifts one way.

Many people have nesting suitcases.  Take a large one with your gifts and pay the fee to carry all your gifts.  Pack your clothes in the smaller one.  Once you get to your destination, hand your gifts out and pack your clothes suitcase inside the larger one and then check that back to home on your return trip.  You can also use a softside duffle bag that you can compress to fit inside your clothes suitcase for your return.   If you travel with someone else, see if you can pack one suitcase to check, one bag to carry *both* of your carry-on items and use one other small bag to carry gifts as a carry on. 

If you are carrying gifts, it is best to leave them unwrapped.  The TSA may well want to look at the item, especially if it is an electronic gift and you don’t want that gift wrap messed up do you?  Do yourself a favor and put them in your luggage in a manner that lets the TSA look at them and put them back neatly.  Use a TSA luggage lock as recommended in this post.  Such a lock allows the TSA to open your baggage, do their search and relock your luggage.  Most theft actually occurs while the airline is handling your bags, not the TSA.  A TSA lock keeps people honest.  Let’s face it, it’s a lot easier to just move to a bag without a lock than it is to defeat yours where you might be spotted.

Identify your luggage.  Put tags on the inside and outside of the bag.  If you’re using one of the Ubiquitous Black Roll On suitcases, mark it with a colorful strap of some kind so you *know* it is your bag coming into the baggage claim and so others know it is *not* their bag.  

Best of all, if you know you’ll be checking your bag, get to the airport a bit earlier than usual so that the bag(s) have time to move through the system and to the aircraft.   If you must connect to another flight in another city, try to schedule those connection with 1 1/2 hour of connection time or more.  That gives you some lee way to make a flight if you are late and it lets your bags make that same flight if you are late.   Isn’t it better to spend an hour in the airport reading than it is to have to return to an airport to claim a lost bag a day later?

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