Airlines lose over 2 million suitcases per year and it's infuriating you've been planning this trip forever you packed carefully and now you're standing at the carousel watching everyone get their bag except for you and while sometimes lost luggage just happens there's several things that you can do to avoid this travel Nightmare and so in this video I'm going to cover several tips and tricks to prevent lost luggage what to do in the event your bag is lost or delayed and most importantly how to get paid if that happens but first why does luggage get lost
in the first place like what are the reasons I got really curious about this and I found this report of Passenger traffic statistics that is baggage mishandling data from basically every Airline for an entire year now I won't go through all of these but here are the top three reasons which make up over 75% of cases 14% of bags are lost or delayed because of things like ticketing errors this is when your baggage tag doesn't say the right destination or like let's say when you get booked to a new flight but your bag doesn't next
at 16% of cases you've got failure to load this is when at your origin airport the bag never even gets on your first flight with you and finally the biggest Reason by far makes up 46% of cases it's called transfer mishandling or more simply it's when your bag doesn't make it onto a connecting flight now both failure to load and transfer mishandling are impacted by things like staff shortages or Tech problems one of of the biggest reasons is time in the case of failure to load it's not arriving to the airport early enough and in
the case of transfer mishandling it's having too tight of a connection so when it comes to preventing lost luggage make sure that if you're checking a bag you're getting to the airport with plenty of time for that bag to get onto the plane and on multi-leg Journeys that your layovers aren't too tight A good rule of thumb for connections is 1 to two hours for domestic flights and 2 to three for international itineraries that are super complicated or have multiple carriers are a red flag for sure if you're taking a complicated itinerary or one where
you've made a bunch of separate bookings with different carriers you may honestly just want to carry on in regards to ticketing errors there are a couple of things that you should always do the first is remove any old luggage tags and stickers that are on your bag and I find that airport staff is usually pretty good about this but just make sure that it happens the second is to read the new labels that are printed out and put on your bag and just make sure everything matches up with your itinerary if you've gotten value out
of this video so far I would love it if you hit that like button so that YouTube knows to suggest it to other Travelers like you thank you here are some other things that you should always do and frankly I do them whether I'm checking a bag or not number one and it's not even close get something like an air tag that you can track your bag with in case it goes missing yes it's legal to put these in your luggage checked or carry on and it makes it extremely easy to know where your bag
is at all times I have one of these in every bag that we travel with if you're anti-apple there are alternatives like the tile Pro I've tested several but so far nothing comes close to the air tag in my opinion next keep important things you need in the next 24 hours or so with you things like medication if you're traveling for work keep that important presentation with you things that would suck to buy as soon as you land right Essentials like a toothbrush your phone charger maybe a fresh pair of undies pack all that stuff
in your personal item I'd also think about what you're wearing on travel days I pretty much always wear Marino wool as my base layer because first of all you never know what the temp is going to be like on the plane it could be blazing hot it could be extremely cold and it could be both of those on the same flight second and most relevant to this situation Marino's moisture wicking odor resistant and it has this kind of natural recoil which basically all means you can rewear it multiple times without having to wash it and
so whether it's a really long travel day or a lost luggage situation where you don't have your fresh clothes Marino is Handy now it's not the cheapest thing out there but this is one of those areas where I feel you really get what you pay for my company of choice for the past several years is Unbound Marino which makes products specifically for travelers and if you hit the link below you'll see some of my wife and I's favorite pieces and you'll also get 10% off your order with the code away together all right so your
flight has landed you're standing at the Carousel and you're not seeing your bag what do you do well first make sure the right Carousel okay and if you are see if any other carousels are spinning and check those out as well I would also check the Airlines app many airlines have apps now that give you updates on the bags and where they're at in the process obviously if you have an air tag or a tracking device I would look at that first thing I've had it happen before where my bag just came off the plane
last and we were wondering where it was it did eventually come to the right Carousel and we had to check the air tag to make sure it was actually there we just had to wait a while but if your bag really isn't there the next step is going to be to go to the Airlines baggage desk first things first I would just ask them where your bag is you'll probably end up filing a claim but it's also happened to me before that my bag was actually just at the desk or in the baggage office for
some reason if they don't have your bag you're filing a claim with the claim you need to provide as much information as possible you're going to give the agent your baggage tag describe any distinctive features of your bag the more details you have the better and make sure you get a reference number for the claim that's how you're going to follow up and track what's happening with your bag and just make sure that they have the right contact info and delivery address do not agree to return to the airport to pick it up that's on
them they need to deliver it to you and while you're at the desk ask the agent exactly what the airline will cover because if your bag is delayed or the airline lost your bag they owe you money now most baggage isn't actually lost it's delayed Airlines don't usually declare bags lost until 5 to 14 days after your flight so in the beginning the money that you're owed is really about covering incidental expenses for Essentials and reasonable purchases for things you need like toiletries or let's say a nice shirt for that important business meeting Airlines policies
really vary on this but they tend to use language like reasonable expenses and according to the US Department of Transportation airlines are not allowed to set an arbitrary daily amount for interim expenses like 50 bucks per day that said whatever you buy just make sure it's reasonable and make sure you keep your receipts because you're going to have to give proof If you book this flight with a credit card I would also contact your credit card company many cards offer baggage delay compensation for example many of Chase's cards provide up to $100 per day for
delay and up to $3,000 for lost luggage I've linked a list of some of my favorite cards below okay so what if your bag is lost once the airline does declare your bag lost they are required to compensate you both for the value of the contents and to reimburse you for fees associated with baggage on your flight they might require receipts to assess the worth of more valuable items you might have packed but if your luggage is lost you are entitled a compensation of up to $3,800 so when you're going through that claim process just
be very specific about what you packed and if you come into a lost luggage situation just make sure you're not a pushover and get the value that you're actually owed based on what you packed so what happens to all the bags that are lost did you know that there's actually a store that buys all the lost luggage that Airlines can't reunite with their owners this is 100% true and it's absolutely fascinating to me I'm actually thinking of taking a little field trip so if you want me to investigate and go to the store to check
it out comment the word Carousel below and if you want to get better at packing carry-on only so you don't ever have to worry about any of this check out this video thanks so much for watching happy travels
