Hi Reader,
Happy Friday!
First of all, thanks to all those of you who replied to our Tuesday Newsletter and shared your kind words with Meg about her Facebook account being suspended. She is moving on and accepting it's gone.
On better news, we drew the 2nd winner of the survey who is also getting $250 USD in cash - YAY!
And the winner is... Maura Soeparjadi Kwik from Indonesia.
You could be the next winner!
And we'd love for you to participate.
Most importantly, we would love to PARTICULARLY hear from you if you are from any country other than the US, UK, Australia and Canada.
We would still love for you to participate if you are from these 4 countries because all opinions count, but we really need help from you if you are from the rest, so our results represent EVERYONE.
Here is the map showing where our responses come from so far. The darker the pink the more responses we have.
As you can see, the vast majority of the participants come from the US, UK, Canada and Australia, everything else is negligible.
Would you like to represent your country?
Please pick the survey that best represents you and click on the button below:
How to prevent your bag from being delayed / lost
Have you ever noticed that when you check in your bag, the staff at the counter will remove stickers from previous baggage check in?
I am referring not only to the previous large and long baggage tag that is attached to your handle, but also to the smaller rectangular stickers that are glue around the suitcase.
Both of these contain bar codes and they are used by the baggage handling systems of most large airports to sort bags automatically and speed things up.
If the machines cannot properly read those bar codes because they are obstructed by other things, the bags get set aside for manual check.
This means that they could be delayed in either the delivery to the carrousel in the baggage hall or, worse, your connecting flight if you have one.
Lastly, ribbons and other loose items you tie to your suitcase could also get caught up in the machinery used to move suitcases around and cause malfunctions (and delays for everyone).
You can do 2 things to avoid issues with your bag being delivered to you on time:
1.Remove previous baggage tags and stickers
I travel a lot though I rarely check in, but when I do, I try to make sure I remove all the previous stickers that are all around my suitcase.
If I forget to do that, they accumulate, since every time I check in there is a new one added. And of course, I remove the previous baggage tag, which the check in staff will do anyway, but you help them by doing it yourself in advance.
If you have other types of stickers your glued to decorate your bag, you may want to consider removing them too.
2. Remove anything fastened to the handles
Anything you tie to the handle where there baggage tag goes, could block the automatic reading of the baggage tag bar code so it's best to remove it.
This means removing any ribbons or other colorful items that you added to help you recognise your bag when it comes out on the carrousel.
How to identify your suitcase otherwise
If you need to find a way to identify your suitcase because it is a very common color / model, consider:
- Taking a picture of it
- Adding a tracker like a Tile or Airtag
- Checking the baggage tag
It wouldn't be the first time I see a traveler go away with someone else's suitcase only for the owner to run after them!
The baggage tag has your name, so you can confirm it is indeed yours before leaving the airport.
I recently flew to Malta with my mum's suitcase because my medium sized one broke in my last trip. It is a very common grey Suitcase and I didn't pay much attention to how it looked so, when I picked it up, I checked that the baggage tag had indeed my name.
Have a great rest of the week!
PS Fill the survey!
Solo Female Travelers Co-Founders
โ