Originally Posted by ATOBTTR

It also seems to be one of those lessons that someone often has to learn the hard way versus listening to the experience or guidance of others. Always advisable to have 1-2 days worth of clothes in your carryon if checking luggage. Sure, dealing with the lost/delayed bag is still an annoyance but at least you can still change into fresh clothes and absolute worst case you have a window to go buy other clothes.

A trick my parents use sometimes if traveling together is they split their clothes between the two suitcases. I.e. my mom puts half her clothes in my dad's suitcase and my dad puts half of his clothes in my mom's suitcase. That way if one suitcase gets delayed, both of them still have some of their stuff.