Air Tags

[billgraham]

Hi all, I was given a set of these as a gift and used them on a recent trip to Ecuador that involved a stop over in Miami. I had a surfboard and typically, that is a nightmare because they always end up in some far flung "oversize baggage" area. I was able to punch it up on my phone and follow the dot to retrieve it, which is a vast improvement over asking everyone in the airport. For dive and camera gear, these little James Bond tracking devices are just the ticket.

 

[tursiops]

Hi all, I was given a set of these as a gift and used them on a recent trip to Ecuador that involved a stop over in Miami. I had a surfboard and typically, that is a nightmare because they always end up in some far flung "oversize baggage" area. I was able to punch it up on my phone and follow the dot to retrieve it, which is a vast improvement over asking everyone in the airport. For dive and camera gear, these little James Bond tracking devices are just the ticket.

But AirTag is for iOS only.
Google has just announced its Find My Device network that works the same way, except for Android.
There are many more Android than Apple phones and a much larger user base.
Chipola has announced its first tags for Find my Device; a bundle of four are available for $79, identical to the AirTag cost.

 

[Eric802]

Those things are great for when something goes sideways with your luggage. We went to Scotland over Christmas last year and British Airways left all our bags behind when we flew home. Their luggage management system is awful - there were times when the only way they knew where our bags were was because I, sitting in Dallas, could locate the Air Tags and tell them "The bags are in Terminal D at Heathrow".

 

[RIHappyDiver]

Those things are great for when something goes sideways with your luggage. We went to Scotland over Christmas last year and British Airways left all our bags behind when we flew home. Their luggage management system is awful - there were times when the only way they knew where our bags were was because I, sitting in Dallas, could locate the Air Tags and tell them "The bags are in Terminal D at Heathrow".

This kind of leads to my question. Has anyone had an experience of knowing before takeoff that your bags weren’t in the plane, and were you able to take some type of action before the plane left?

Erik

 

[drl]

Not yet. But it’s been a great comfort to be able to see that the bags are on the plane or made it to the terminal.

 

[tmrqs]

Airlines routinely send bags to the same destination on other planes, if it makes more sense for them.

On a relatively long layover, I was actually able to see my bags leave the airport before my flight. I knew they were not going to travel with me before I even got on my plane.

Which also helped when I landed, I knew exactly where my bag was (near the Baggage desk). I didn’t go to the belt where all the bags from my actual flight were delivered, saved time.

AirTags are amazing, use them in all my bags.

 

[scubadada]

American Airlines has a pretty nice luggage tracker on their app, at least tells you they were loaded, transferred, unloaded. Tracked by bag number and scanning. Obviously, does not tell you exactly where your bags are.

My wife and I use Tile luggage trackers on our Android phones, work pretty well. We've never had Apple phones.

 

[O-ring]

+1 on smart tags. Delta lost my bag and I knew it even before we backed up from the gate since my phone didn't show the bag being near me. I was able to walk past the carousel and straight to the baggage office and report it rather than wait in vain for it to appear. After a couple of phone calls and me steering them toward the right concourse using the smart tag they finally produced the bag a day or two later.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

This kind of leads to my question. Has anyone had an experience of knowing before takeoff that your bags weren’t in the plane, and were you able to take some type of action before the plane left?

Erik

There's no way they would stop a plane from taking off even if your luggage wasn't on board.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I finally just bought some AirTags. I used to fly Delta mostly, and their app sends a notification when your "bags have been loaded onboard," etc. Now that Delta changed the rules to make it harder for less-frequent fliers like me to attain frequent flyer status, I am no longer beholden to Delta (I feel liberated!) and am flying on a myriad of carriers, most of which have no fancy app to track whether bags have been loaded.