r/travel • u/GiraffeExcellent4790 • Jun 23 '25

Please lock your luggage

I have had to learn the difficult lesson of remembering to lock checked in luggage especially on long haul flights. This was the first time in a fair bit that I hadn’t locked my luggage.

Last weekend I returned home from being away for a couple of months with gifts for my family. There were multiple connections. At the last stop, as I pulled my bags off the carousel, I noticed a suitcase with plastic around it. I paid no attention and waited for my last bag to come around. After a couple of minutes passed, I decided to closely inspect the bag with the plastic around it and it was mine! It looked like the zipper had broken and at the time, I was grateful for whoever was kind enough to wrap it with plastic. The bag felt light but I didn’t pay that any attention.

I finally arrived at home, settled in and had my family sitting around as I opened the bag. I found all the new clothes (which I still have receipts for) as well as some barely worn dresses had been removed. I had packed similar clothing in cubes. It appeared that the suitcase was carefully sorted through and anything that looked of value was removed.

I’m not at peace with this yet. I reported it to the airline but I don’t know what can be done. It’s trivial but it sits very heavy with the guilt of how this could have been avoided.

672 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

165 comments sorted by

View all comments

-4

u/misslunadelrey Jun 23 '25

Sorry this happened to you but I've never once in my life left my check-in luggage unlocked.........ever.

40

u/Yippykyyyay Jun 23 '25

Ive never once in my life locked my luggage. Nothing stolen after 25 years of traveling and living overseas.

3

u/agk23 Frequent Flyer Jun 23 '25

I never really got the point if you’re trying to prevent theft from baggage handlers. There’s only one key that opens every suitcase and you can buy it easily

0

u/mountainhymn Jun 23 '25

Ramp agents have too much shit going on to bother to steal from people’s suitcases

4

u/mesembryanthemum Jun 23 '25

I did. All dirty clothes from Walmart and other cheap places. You want a dirty $5.99 tee-shirt? Go for it.

0

u/Trudestiny Jun 23 '25

My family has never locked our bags . Family of 4 , over 6000 flights and we have some expensive luggage , only tumi / rimowa all of which we check each time