Have you seen the piles of luggage at London’s Heathrow Airport? It is just incredible…piles and piles of luggage and angry customers wondering when, or if, they will ever see their luggage again. I have had luggage arrive a few days late before, but the stories now are about travelers never seeing their luggage again. Ouch! So my first strategy…only bring carry on luggage. But I still may wind up checking my luggage on trips, especially on some smaller planes I am flying.
The second thing I did was buy an AirTag. These little devices, about as big as a quarter, can be dropped or attached anywhere and tracked by your iPhone. While I like to use airlines apps to follow my luggage, sometimes they don’t know where my bag is located. I recently watched one of my bags disappear down the conveyor belt without a bag tag attached…luckily I told the agent and they had someone bring it back up to get tagged. Imagine if I didn’t catch the mistake, goodbye luggage.
AirTags work using bluetooth signal, not GPS. Anytime an iPhone user goes near your bag (800 ft) the AirTag relays the position to that device which in turn will allow Apple to send you the location using the “Find My” app on your iPhone. AirTags only with work with iPhones, and you need a phone from the last few years for the technology to work. AirTags don’t show history, only current location. You can also turn on sounds to help you locate your AirTag nearby.
Do they work? Yes, incredibly well. You might not get a notification if your bag has fallen off a truck in a remote field, but traveling through airports it is very accurate. If your bag is sitting in Heathrow when you arrive in Sidney, you will know about it…let the search begin! The battery lasts about a year (easily replaced).
There have been some stories of stalkers planting AirTags on people and using this to track folks. Apple has a warning that will come up on your phone if there is an AirTag close to you that is not yours, and it stays there for an extended amount of time. Honestly I’m not worried about this, I’m much more interested in knowing where my luggage is on my next trip. For about $25, AirTags give me a little more peace of mind when traveling.