I need to find a way to ensure my bagage doesn't get lost on a forthcoming trip, at least not on the outboundleg! I am going to Antarctica and will be pretty lost without my warm clothes etc, which are too big to bring handlugage. To get there, I need to take four flights on three different airlines. Any suggestions how to ensure my lugage arrives with me?

(Anyone who has ever made several coach connections in one trip is probably chuckling a "good luck!" to you right now!)

One thing you might consider is checking in your luggage with each connection. Get off the plane, go to baggage claim and collect everything, walk it back up to the agents and check it in again.

This is probably a big hassle, but there's a secret that American Eagle let out about their baggage handling. (American Eagle is the commuter plane fleet of American Airlines.) When their planes have reached capacity, luggage is the first to go, and they start with coach class. They'll take it back off and let it wait for the next trip.

I suspect that they're not the only airline to do this, and I suspect that many stories of lost luggage were actually redirected luggage. (When you have an angry flyer looking you in the face, are you going to tell them that they won't make their dinner arrangements tonight because you redirected their luggage, or are you going to apologize, take their phone number and a description and tell them you'll get to the bottom of it?)

I will tell you the truth, in the past 30 years I have traveled overseas at least twice a year or more and have never ever lost one piece of luggage.

I take the American Eagle, commuter into the Big Apple, take a larger plane from there and usually transfer one more time until I reach my destination.

I always tag by bags twice with identification, and I put a sheet of paper inside the bag with my name, address, phone etc.

I tag the bags with my destination address, on the trip home, I change the tags to read my home address.

I check the bags thru to my final destination on the first leg of my trip. I have always tried to be early to the airport also, so that my bags are in the belly of the plane first (the bags to be left behind will be the last ones loaded.)

Maybe there is no rhyme or reason to any of the the above and the fact I have lost no bags. Perhaps it is just dumb luck........

No one likes a show-off!

Not really....just obsessive/compulsive

We are a military family who travels ALOT, and we've never lost our luggage either. The trick is to make sure your luggage looks like it goes together. Then the people who load the luggage are much more likely to throw it together. Our luggage is really really ugly, brown flowered crap with orange tape on the corners. You can't miss it, and no one else has luggage like it.

We put pieces of brightly colored yarn on our luggage, along with a tag with our name, address, and phone number. We've never lost any luggage that way, though a time or two it came on a later flight.