If you lose your carefully packed suitcase when you’re traveling, it’s going to head off on an adventure of its very own

Imagine this: You just got off your flight and you’re standing at baggage claim watching all the suitcases go round and round the conveyer belt. People are reaching over you to lift their suitcases off and then happily sail out of the airport. One by one, all the suitcases disappear until it’s just you… and the guy mopping the airport floor. There are no more suitcases to be seen. Where’s yours?

Maybe it’s been delayed. Maybe it went to the wrong place. Or maybe another passenger took it, thinking it was theirs!

What do you do now?

You head to the counter and tell the person there that you can’t find your suitcase. They’ll have you fill out a form, with identifying details and your address. Sometimes they’ll even give you a little complimentary toiletry kit complete with pajamas (that are, naturally, printed with the name of the airline that you never want to fly with again!) to help smooth your ruffled feathers.

The good news? Most of the time, the airlines will find your luggage and safely deliver it to you within five days of your arrival. (Not so helpful if your vacation is four days!) After that, things don’t look so promising. Airlines actually have 90 days to reunite the lost luggage with their owners. In over 99 percent of cases, airlines will find identifying details on the suitcases and are successful.

Did YOU ever lose your luggage?

We asked some of our readers and over 99 percent answered no, but a few said yes….

Once my mother lost her luggage and we had to wait around for a long time in the airport while she told the airline rep what was missing.

—Perel Fischer

We lost our luggage on the way from France to Chicago. We had to go to Target late at night to buy some new clothes! A few days later, they found our luggage and it was delivered to us.

—Nechama Leeba Sussman, 11 South Africa

When we were moving from Eretz Yisrael, the moving company lost our buffet and we never heard from them again!

—Shmuli Friedman, 13 Monsey, NY

We once lost our luggage because someone who had the same suitcase as us took ours by mistake! Eventually we realized and were reunited with our suitcase.

— Mia Schwab, 9, London, England

Once, when we traveled home from Israel, our suitcases didn’t arrive at the same time as us. I went to school without my homework sheets, because they were packed in a suitcase… which we got the following week!

—Esther Beren, 9 Lakewood,NJ

Just a few weeks ago, we were traveling. We had to stop over for a few hours and the airlines said they couldn’t find two of our suitcases… but when we got to our destination, there they were, waiting for us baruch Hashem!

— Chani Opat, 7, London, England

Even the Inside Scoop members who lost their luggage were eventually reunited with them. But what happens to that tiny one percent, whose luggage is permanently lost? If the airline still can’t find your suitcase, you’ll get paid from the airline as compensation for what they’ve lost, and the search is over. As for the suitcase, if it does turn up one day, it will be sent to the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama.

Amazingly, one percent of lost suitcases from all the billions of travelers every day ends up equaling thousands of suitcases! Unclaimed Baggage receives all the lost bags from airlines, bus lines, Amtrak, cruise ships, resorts, and rental car companies… not to mention all the carry-on items people leave behind in seat-back compartments and overhead bins, in airports and bus stations and even items that are confiscated by TSA!