Longtime lurker here, troubled enough to pose a question on: Do you remove the baggage stickers on luggage (i.e., the small barcoded stickers, meant as backup if the main baggage sticker gets lost) after your travel and, if yes, why?

The background is that I have a faithful hard case of some 14 years that accompanies me on most travels of more than 4 hours. I never removed the above-mentioned tiny stickers and usually staff at check-in guests are more intrigued by the case's journey than otherwise. One exception was a check-in staff saying that leaving the stickers there might lead to the case getting lost, but this was countered by another staff who said that the scanners would only identify the valid/current tag for the flight. The case never got lost in the past 14 years too, which may lend some credibility to the latter argument.

However, my case is now much lighter as most stickers were removed by a check-in staff - who was determined to peel everything off without giving a reason (or respond to my questions of why she was removing them) (not sure whether it was because I declined their generously expensive upgrade offer). Thus, wondering what the forum members think? Was I just quite fortunate not to lose my case in my past journeys?