Make Sure Its Your Bag

A couple of years ago, my mother and I went on a weekend ski trip to Colorado. We booked our flights into Denver International Airport and had a family friend pick us up and drive us into the mountains towards the slopes. Before the trip we decided to pack both my mother’s and my stuff into one extra large suitcase that we would check.

Flying out, we checked the bag with no problem at all, went through security, boarded our flight, and flew the four-ish hours to Denver. When we got off the plane we proceeded to the baggage claim and waited for our bag.

This is where things got a little weird. The bag we had been using was one of the first bags to come around the baggage belt. When we took it off, we soon noticed that the handle had been severely damaged and hanging on by a thread. We were pretty annoyed, but the tiredness out weighed it, so we figured we would just take the bag as it is and start the drive up into the mountains. After all, it was late, we were tired; we just wanted to get to the house and the bag still served its intended purpose.

Unfortunately, it had been snowing on the drive so we took it slow. We ended up getting to the house just after 11 PM Mountain time or 1 AM Eastern Standard Time. We immediately opened the suitcase to get stuff to get ready for bed. To our surprise, the contents of the suitcase was not ours.

We realized that our suitcase most likely wasn’t broken, but that we just took someone’s bag that was the exact same bag as ours. This meant that we had to drive back to the airport to get our bags, give this person back their bag and drive back up into the mountains. I was too young and too tired to stay up any longer, so I went to sleep while my mom drove back to the airport.

It took her three and a half hours before she returned to the ski house with our perfectly fine, unbroken bag. It was late in the night and definitely not a good start to our trip.

The moral of the story is to make sure that you grab your own suitcase when traveling. I have seen many people with the exact same Away Bigger Carry-On that I have, and I am always worried that I or someone else will take the wrong bag by accident.

I stuck one strip of bright red duct tape across the front of the bag so I know that it is mine and alert others that it is not theirs. Luggage tags are also helpful for contacting you if someone else accidentally takes your bag. Even if you do not want to put duct tape on your suitcase, make sure that before you leave the airport, you have checked that it is your bag or you may end up having to spend an extra four hours in the car.