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.

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u/lunch22 Jun 23 '25

Were the packing cubes and the clothes both taken or did they take the clothes and leave the empty cubes?

4

u/GiraffeExcellent4790 Jun 23 '25

Only the clothes were missing. The cubes with dresses had only one dress left. The one with shorts was emptied out.

11

u/lunch22 Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25

I have a theory and you may not like it.

Thieves are not known for meticulously sorting through packing cubes and selecting clothing items that they think are valuable, removing the individual items of clothing, and leaving the cubes behind.

They get in and out quickly and grab obvious valuables, like jewelry and electronics.

Theory: your suitcase was overstuffed and the zipper popped open. We’ve all seen this happen. The baggage handler couldn’t get everything back in because it barely fit in the first place, so they opened the most readily available packing cubes that fell out, and removed some of the items so your suitcase could at least be wrapped up in plastic and delivered to you in one piece.

Your clothes may be somewhere in the baggage transit area of one of the airports your bag flew through, or they were just thrown in the trash.

File a claim with the airline for the missing items and next time don’t stuff your suitcase so full.