One of my earliest travel memories involves helping to prepare for a family trip to Poland. After hours spent packing gifts for our relatives (good ol’ American purchases from the Ralph Lauren outlet), I remember watching my dad marking his all-black, soft-sided suitcase—bursting at the seams—with bright green tape. I asked him what the green stars were for, and when he explained his little airport hack, I thought he was a genius. In the same way we were never to take from the mini bar, baggage claim, he made it seem, was a matter of life and death.
In addition to that bright green tape was, of course, a luggage tag containing a handwritten phone number and address, should we have gotten separated from our Ralph Lauren goods. Today the luggage tag comes in various shapes and materials, from long, silicon rectangles to embossed leather flaps: for some, it’s a stocking stuffer put to good use; for others, a souvenir from trips passed. Whatever the origin story, there’s no denying it’s an analog accessory, evoking a more nostalgic era of travel.
So long, luggage tag
I, along with a few other Condé Nast Traveler editors, gathered some anecdotal evidence that people are using the analog tag less and less. On a recent trip home from France, I watched in horror as my friend played a little game of which is yours with another traveler who owned the same Away Large Checked suitcase in Olive. While both passengers employed the Away-branded luggage tag that came with their suitcases, they forgot to actually fill it out, which led to one of them opening their suitcase at baggage claim and confirming it was theirs via their belongings.
Relying on the blank tag alone—what seems to be a common mistake amongst travelers—is like failing to enter the security code during two-step verification. My friend, of course, was lucky that time.
The age of AirTags
My hunch is that, ever since the introduction of tracking technology like AirTags, people have relied a little too heavily on these devices, either consciously or subconsciously subscribing to the misguided belief that it’s all they need—when in fact, the AirTag and that pebbled leather luggage tag serve two related, yet separate purposes. While an AirTag might be able to help you find the stranger with your suitcase, it does nothing to differentiate it from the pack, nor does it provide that stranger with the information they need to find you.
“An AirTag is for the self, but a luggage tag is for everyone else,” editorial assistant Skyli Alvarez profoundly puts it. “The ability to track check-ins (through an airline app, text updates, etc.) gives travelers a false sense of security and above all convenience (until it isn’t), shifting the focus away from human error at baggage claim.”
Baggage claim is, indeed, a lawless place, one of the last institutions on earth that continues to rely on an honor system. Every month the US Department of Transportation releases its Air Travel Consumer Report, detailing reported cases of lost and mishandled baggage (see our rundown of the most culpable airlines here), but I haven’t been able to find any precise global statistics available for accidental swaps. These are considered a customer error, resolved (or not resolved) directly between passengers. But if you ask around, I can guarantee there’s at least one person you know who has been a witness or victim of a baggage claim snafu.
