THE more holidays you go on, the more your suitcase will rack up the plane stickers and hotel labels.
But you may want to think twice before removing them from your bag.
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The old stickers could end up getting you a free upgrade, as one frequent traveller found out.
Michael Gebicki explained on Traveller: “I was recently given a room upgrade while checking into a hotel in India’s desert city of Bikaner.
“Instead of the base-level room I’d paid for, I was ushered into a Regimental Room, two rungs higher up the posh ladder.”
He said that he thought this was because his suitcase, which had lots of tags on, showed he travelled a lot.
Michael continued: “The only rationale I could think to explain this happy turn of events was that I’d just finished an expensive tour of other parts of India.
“Staying in hotels with crisp linen and room butlers, […] my luggage handles were aflutter with hotel labels that suggested a premier league traveller and the illusion of modest wealth.”
There is one thing you should never put on your luggage tag – and that’s your address.
Richard Clive Rowlands, who regularly travels for events and festival work, also said not to put any other addresses on it: “Don’t put a residential address on luggage tags as it says: ‘This house is empty, please burgle – and take your time.’”
However, you may want to remove any of your flight tags before you board your next flight if you are checking it in.
This is because the tags can confuse airport workers about where the bag needs to go.
Your bag could then get lost or sent to a completely different country than yours.
A baggage handler previously revealed on Reddit: “If you have a bag tag from two years ago, as well as a load of other ones, it takes us infinitely longer to find the right date for where it’s supposed to be going.
“This almost always happens because the tags are confusing and we only have an hour to sort 800 bags going to three places.”
If you need a new bag, here is a £25 Matalan suitcase everyone is raving about.
Here are some other cheap suitcases to choose from.
Don’t get a black suitcase though – this is more likely to get lost.
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