Knock wood, I have (or more accurately, an airline has) lost my luggage only once. And it wasn’t really lost, it just took a later flight than I did, thanks to bad weather at my connecting airport. I know there are some poor souls who’ve never gotten their luggage back, and stacks of luggage that never finds its way home. And while the premise makes sense, in a Goodwill/Salvation Army Thrift Store way, I am a little creeped out by the bargain-hunting that goes on at the Unclaimed Baggage Store, mostly because the goods at a charity thrift store were donated, while the merchandise at UBS is “donated” by default. The UBS site claims they have found antiques, art, expensive electronics and gemstones in lost luggage.
Admitted voyeur Luna Laboo has been buying lost luggage, photographing the contents and posting it on her Is This Your Luggage website, hoping to reunite the goods with their owners. Most of the cases contain clothes, but one on the site includes some souvenirs and gifts from Mexico or South America or maybe just the American Southwest.
Here’s a tip to keep your luggage both off her site and out of the Unclaimed Baggage Store: use a real luggage tag, not one of those free paper ones the airline hands out at the check-in; put two business cards in your luggage – one taped to the inside bottom of the case, and one in an inside pocket of the case. And maybe a third in an outside pocket. Oh, and stop tossing your loose diamonds and emeralds in with your dirty socks, okay?
