How to Check a Bag at the Airport | (avoid lost luggage)

in my last video i covered essential tips to best prepare your checked baggage so it actually arrives at your destination in today's video i'll share little known facts as well as things that you can do when dropping a checked bag at the airport to avoid it from being lost or delayed i'll also throw in some hacks to ensure that your luggage comes out first on the luggage belt when you land [Music] the first thing to know about checking a suitcase or a bag at the airport is that when you arrive to drop the bag matters and potentially not in the way that you think if you arrive too early to drop your bag such as four hours or more before your flight is set to depart you could be in trouble the ideal situation is to check your bag and have it go directly onto the plane or at least have it kept with all of the other checked bags that will be on your flight checked luggage that is dropped off too early as in too far advance of your flight's departure is likely going to be put in a holding area and then bags that are in the holding area at a higher risk of being forgotten or lost and not making it onto the flight at all the second important thing to know when checking a bag at the airport is that arriving too late is also going to be a bad idea sometimes an airline will check all passengers in for a flight and then it will take off early so you might make it onto the flight but if your bag was one of the last ones dropped it might not be making it onto the plane there is also a chance that the plane is going to fill up with everyone else's checked luggage and if you are one of the last to arrive at the airport to check your bag there may not be any space the best way to avoid this situation especially with how full flights are these days would be to purchase your checked baggage allowance in advance so then even if you are just a little bit late getting to the airport the airline is still expecting to accommodate your checked bag but even purchasing your luggage in advance is not going to guarantee that it makes it onto the plane since airlines are notorious for overselling seats and overselling checked baggage allowance assuming that some people are just not going to make the flight it's also extremely important to know that airlines have cut off times for dropping a checked bag that could be up to two hours before the flight's departure let us know down in the comments how many hours prior to your flight's departure you prefer to arrive at the airport when checking a bag at the airport you will also want to pay close attention to the tags that are being added to your bag by the airline representative before the bag is taken away make sure that the barcode on the luggage tag has been printed without any smudges and that the three-letter airport code on the tag matches your final destination airport code you can find the three-letter code of your destination airport with a quick google search just remember to always use a vpn before connecting to the airport's public wi-fi i'll leave more info on why a vpn is a travel essential as well as a link to get three months free to the vpn that i use in the description and this next piece of advice is so important to know if you are checking a bag and you do have a stop at an airport where you need to switch planes prior to arriving at your final destination sometimes you need to pick up your checked luggage and drop it a second time while in transit during that airport stop usually the airline representative is going to tell you if you will need to pick up your bag and recheck it during your stop but they may forget so do yourself a favor when you go to drop your bag and ask if you will need to pick it up during your stop so you are 100 confident if you do need to pick it up and you fail to do so that bag is not going to be making it on to your next flight and you will arrive at your destination without a bag another critical thing to know when dropping a bag at the airport is that you need to hold on to any baggage receipts that you receive if anything goes wrong and your bag does not arrive as expected at your destination airport you will need these receipts to help track it down i'll always stick them inside my passport to make sure they are not lost but i will also take a picture of them just in case many major airlines are also going to give you a virtual receipt along with codes that you can use to track down your luggage these are often available to you in the airlines app there are also a few things that you can consider when checking your bag at the airport that might influence when it comes out on the luggage belt at your final destination you want your bag to come out first on the luggage belt so you can grab it and then get through any customs or immigration lines before other travelers that are also waiting for their bags the tricky thing is that for your bag to be one of the first bags out on the luggage belt it needs to be one of the last bags into the plane suitcases and bags are loaded front to back on the bag carts so if your bag is one of the last ones dropped it's going to be one of the last ones on the plane and then it's also going to be the first one off the plane at your destination the reverse is also going to be true if you arrive with three to four hours before your flight's departure you're probably going to have your bag as one of the first bags loaded onto the plane meaning it's going to be one of the last bags off the plane to figure out the sweet spot on when to check your bag in check your airline's cutoff time for accepting a checked bag and then aim to drop your bag within 30 minutes of that cut off so in a case with the airline that you are flying with stops accepting bags two hours before the flight's departure then you'll probably want to be dropping your bag around two and a half hours before the departure so you're one of the last ones but you're not cutting it too close to the cut-off something else that you can try to increase the chances of your luggage coming out first at your destination would be to place those fragile stickers on the outside of your suitcase or to ask the airline representative when you go to drop your bag to place these fragile stickers on your bag for you i'm not convinced that having a fragile sticker on your luggage is going to have any effect as i have heard that bags with fragile and without fragile are going to be handled in the exact same way but in theory it does make sense as fragile bags would be placed on top of other bags as opposed to under them which means they're going to be pulled off of the plane first and put out on the luggage belt for you to pick up the very best way to ensure that your bag is not going to be lost delayed or damaged would be to fly with only carry-on luggage where you are able to keep your belongings with you for the entire duration of the flight i understand that flying carry-on only is not always possible so if you do decide to check a bag for your next flight be sure to follow these tips at the airport to ensure that it arrives at your destination or at least to give it the best chance thanks for watching best of luck on your next trip and then i hope you'll subscribe so you can join us back here for more travel tips and hacks next week bye

Channel: Portable Professional (Travel Tips with Megan)

Views: 311,201

Keywords: airport checking, best checked luggage, carry on luggage, check in luggage at the airport, how to check a bag at the airport, how to check in at the airport, how to check in baggage at airport, how to check in luggage at airport, how to pack luggage for international flights, lost luggage, luggage, luggage check in airport, luggage packing tips, luggage tag, portable professional, travel tips

Id: DNPZfpW53ms

Length: 6min 41sec (401 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 07 2022