During frequent flights and transfers, bags and suitcases are “overgrown” with stickers and tags. They annoy some travelers and get rid of them, but even this can be beneficial. Writer and photographer Michael Gebiki explained to the travel publication Traveler why you should not remove the stickers even after the trip, reports The Sun.
The appearance of the bag due to “unnecessary decorations” may disfigure it, but Gebiki is of a different opinion.
“Recently, I got a free upgrade of the room during my check-in at a hotel in the desert Indian city of Bikaner. Instead of the standard, they settled me in a suit, and this room is two categories higher and more luxurious,” the writer tells about his experience.
He believes that the reason for the upgrade was a large number of stickers on his suitcase. This betrayed an experienced traveler in him – the hotel employees wanted to please the man.
“The only reason I can explain this happy turn of events is that I have just completed an expensive journey through various regions of India.
I’ve stayed in high-end hotels with crisp linens and butler service. The handles of my suitcases were just full of various luxury hotel labels, creating the illusion of me as a modest rich man,“ adds the traveler.
However, according to the advice of travel experts, there is one thing you should never put on your luggage tag, and that is your address. Richard Clive Rowlands, who regularly travels to events and festivals for work, advised not to include any address information on it.
“Don’t put your address on your luggage tags, as it will read: ‘This house is empty, please rob it, and don’t rush,” the source shares the expert’s recommendation.
However, frequent flyers are advised to remove a couple of old stickers from their suitcases before boarding the next flight if they are checking their luggage. This is because the tags can confuse airport workers as to where the bag should be delivered.
“If you have a two-year-old luggage tag on your bag, and a lot of other things, it takes us infinitely longer to find information about where to send it. This is almost always the case, because the stickers are confusing, and we only have an hour to sort 800 suitcases that are going to three different destinations,” one user shared on the Reddit forum, reporting that he works as a “baggage handler”.
Travel experts also advise passengers not to check in a black suitcase without any identification marks: it is likely to be lost, the publication concludes.