The Case Of The Missing Stickers!

Before I begin this blog, please know that it’s tongue in cheek – I really do still have a balanced sense of perspective on life, however a recent travel event really irked me and caused Agatha Christie to loom large as I tried to solve the Case of the Missing Stickers…

The luggage switch

We bought a set of luggage about 2 years ago from a luggage retailer specialist, in fact it was the first set of matching luggage we’ve ever owned so we were quite excited about using it. We chose a classic navy-blue colour and the cases looked great, however, on their first outing we quickly realised that everyone else thought so too, as most of the luggage on the baggage carousel was the same colour (and brand of case)!

Not a problem you say? We didn’t think either, until after an overnight long-haul flight, when we collected our navy-blue luggage, collected our car and set off on the motorway home (a 200-mile drive after very little sleep), only to receive a call from the Heathrow Luggage Department asking if we had picked up the right luggage? “Yes of course”, I replied confidently, only to be met with the reply “It’s just that we’ve got one here with your name on it, and a man who is missing a case which looks just like yours”. Humbled, we had to retrace our steps back to the airport to swap cases.

Never again did we want to risk such an embarrassing scenario, so we decided to make our luggage more identifiable.

Using colourful straps to differentiate

Our first line of attack was to purchase a set of colourful luggage straps to go around the cases – bright orange – very fetching I thought. However it turns out that navy-blue and orange goes so well together that lots of other people had the same idea, so we were no further forward with trying to differentiate our luggage. I’m not sure why, but I feel uncomfortable about having our surname embroidered on the straps which could also have been an option.

Destination stickers for identification

Our second tactic was to put stickers to our cases from places we had visited on our travels. We had more success with this strategy and the number of stickers slowly increased on our cases after each trip. Finally our cases were then instantly recognisable on the baggage carousel.

You can probably sense a BUT coming, and you’re right. After our last long-haul flight from Cancun to Heathrow, we noticed that some of the stickers on one of the cases were missing – totally gone, peeled off….

I know some people might think that the stickers are (a) childish, or (b) a bit showy in terms of where people have travelled to, but they can also perform a very practical purpose, as outlined above.

Note – don’t use ribbons on your cases as they can get stuck in the machines!

Stickers as cheap souvenirs and memory prompts

Using the destination stickers seemed harmless – we had fun choosing a sticker on our trips to personalise our luggage and they provided prompts for travel memories each time we got the cases out.

We made sure not to buy stickers which could be in anyway offensive – nothing political or commenting on social issues or personal preferences (each to their own!). Sometimes the stickers were even a conversation starter at the luggage carousel. So why peel them off?

Was it just our stickers?

After a quick search on the internet, it seems that missing stickers are quite common. There was a whole Reddit thread entitled “Delta peeled stickers off my luggage”. In that thread, the author said they had 25 stickers on their luggage, and all but 2 were peeled off, so it seemed deliberate. However, a traveller on TripAdvisor had the opposite scenario, when they collected their luggage from the carousel one of their cases had 4 butterfly stickers on it which they had not put there. All very strange.

Sticker Sabotage?

As silly as it sounds, it feels like an act of sabotage when it happens. It’s not important in the grand scheme of life and important world issues, however, it feels petty and personal, even though it’s clearly not – probably just some of the baggage handlers having a bit of a laugh on a long shift.

Other possible reasons for missing stickers

Could there be other reasons why the stickers are missing? Some alternative reasons for stickers disappearing might be:

• Condensation – may cause stickers to peel off but I’m not sure if this is a real thing?
• Age – they lose their stickiness due to age, although our stickers were all relatively new.
• Accident – they get caught in the luggage machinery, although in our case some of the stickers survived and some had totally disappeared from the same line.
• Baggage hygiene…

Baggage hygiene

Airlines currently check-in your baggage using bar code labels which the luggage processing machines read to direct your luggage to its correct destination. Stickers can reportedly disrupt the scanners, meaning that your bag is either not scanned or then scanned manually, increasing the potential for errors. This is the main reason why travellers are advised not to add stickers to their luggage.

Baggage hygiene refers to process of removing stickers which might interfere with the scanning process. However, I imagine that baggage hygiene refers to removing baggage tags with location bar codes which some people like to collect, rather than decorative stickers?

Other suggestions for personalising your luggage might be to use sturdy luggage tags to identify your cases, or coloured suitcase covers which are also available.

In conclusion

I will never know what happened to our suitcase stickers and whether they met an unpleasant end. I’d like to think they got reattached to someone else’s luggage and are still happily travelling the world.

The moral of this story is to use stickers if you want to, but be prepared for them to disappear. If using stickers, try to keep them away from the official luggage tags with bar codes to avoid messing up the scanning process.

And finally, I have a friend who worked as a baggage handler and he has stickers on his case, so go figure!

Thank you so much for reading my blog, I hope you found it useful?

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Enjoy your travels!