I live in constant fear of “delayed” bags. Sure, it’s annoying to be without clothing, toiletries and other road items, but our “delayed” bags have have a high probability of catching up to us. The airlines will send it out to our hotel at their expense, and hotel front desk staff are usually quite good about receiving it on our behalf and letting us know. It’s not the end of the world.
But when we sometimes only pop into a country for a few days, my fear is that in the event of delayed bags, we may be off to another destination before our luggage turns up.
When we’re on the road, we can be flying as often as a couple of times per week. And since it will typically be weeks or months until we return home, labeling our luggage with our home address is useless. I’ve instead switched to labeling “In case of delayed bags …” because really, that’s the only reason we need identifying information on the bags at all.
On the back of a scrap of paper or trimmed-down index card with our name, email and phone numbers, I will typically write a detailed itinerary:
2011-01-15: YYZ —(AF306)—-> CDG —(AF2911)—-> BUC
FINAL DESTINATION: (Hotel Name, Address, Phone)
2011-01-20: BUC —(KL1192)—-> AMS —(KL691)—-> MUC
FINAL DESTINATION: (Hotel Name, Address, Phone)
It’s my thinking that a reasonable human can therefore figure out, depending on when it is discovered, what to do with our luggage. In other words, please don’t send my bag to a hotel in Bucharest if I’m already on my way to Germany.
Staples Print and Copy Centre has a deal on business card printing right now (250 cards for $9.99) and in an effort to avoid using scraps of paper in my purse while standing at the check-in counter, I’ve ordered a stack to at least reduce the number of times I have to write our phone numbers (one of which is a toll-free phone number that only works in North America, so the fewer times I have to explain that in writing, the better).
The cards I designed last night (I forgot to save a capture of the proof) look like:
J.B. and Sarah Rainsberger
In case of delayed bags, please deliver this bag to the following address no later than: _(space for date)_
(space for handwriting a final destination)
travel email address
various phone numbers, and which ones can be used where
For more travel information and full itinerary, please see reverse >>>>>>>>>>>
I have tried re-using cards (front written in pen, back in pencil) but that does get messy pretty quickly. I have thought of using a wet/dry erase solution for the back of the card, but bags are not guaranteed to stay dry and are subject to rough handling. If our bags really have been misplaced, fallen off a conveyor belt, or left to rot on the tarmac, then I don’t want to assume that non-permanent markings will remain intact.
I have also considered simply leaving a full itinerary in each bag, but since we typically use travel locks, that means our bags would have to be opened in order for someone to find our schedule. (When our travel itinerary is pages long, it doesn’t exactly fold and fit into the ID slot.) I have also had attached luggage tags go missing from our bags, so the built-in slot seems like a more secure option. We have even mis-identified our own luggage, and filed a “delayed baggage” report, because somewhere along the line, one of those elastic rainbow “belts” magically appeared on our bag! (We’re assuming it came off of one bag in handling, and the crew reattached it, but to our bag by mistake.) So, we’ve decided nothing that goes on or comes off the bag.
It’s true that this “In case of delayed bags” labeling strategy depends on reasonable, thinking humans. But I’m hoping that giving explicit instructions might save a bit of back and forth in the event that something does happen. Any staff member from any airline or airport can come across our bag and know which airline is responsible for it and where it should eventually end up, even if the airline’s tag is missing.
If you have another idea, let me know!
