How to Avoid Lost Luggage Misery!

Lost luggage is a travel nightmare, but a Global Bag Tag helps ensure frequent flyers never lose their checked-in baggage by giving online access to a special website.

Lost luggage is one of the worst fears that frequent flyers face. Waiting at the luggage carousel while everyone else's bags arrive, but not yours, is something that we all have a chance of facing at some time in our travels. Yet most lost luggage is not in fact lost. It's more often simply been parted from its owner and its luggage tags, and most baggage is eventually fund and returned to the right people.

The problem with most lost luggage is in finding the right people. Many travelers use a flimsy luggage tag, which can easily be ripped off leaving no owner's details in the bag. If the airline's own barcoded baggage tag also comes off – and it happens – then the bag is unidentifiable. The lost luggage could belong to anyone, anywhere in the world.

There are about 250,000 reports of lost baggage in the United States alone every month. And rising. Six years ago a traveler named Chris Truelove and his wife lost one of their cases. They had to survive a three-week trip on what they could buy locally, and were disappointed by the compensation the airline offered them.

So Chris and his wife set up www.globalbagtags.com. For £9.95 you get a pair of sturdy luggage tags, each of which has a unique code on it. You also get a year's access to the online database. Here you can record your itinerary and contact details, every time you travel, and if your luggage is lost the airline can track you down and get it back to you by going online and finding you. You should also, of course, write the information on a card and put it inside your luggage, for double security. I use them myself and hope I never find out how well they work.

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