Should I Split Checked Baggage?
 

Evening All,

I’m travelling London Heathrow – Toronto – Saskatoon on Thursday with AC; is it worth the hassle in splitting the contents of my checked baggage from one bag to two on the off chance one goes missing while in transit?! (Or if one goes missing, do they both go?!)

What do people normally do?
Cheers

I only ever take "carry on" luggage with me on a trip...

Do you feel like handling two bags (plus carryon) the whole trip?

I have a nice 22" and a matching tote that fits on the handle of the other one. So they handle as one bag but when lifting one or the other, I only have to manage 10 kg at a time, not 20.

On the other hand, for most of my travel I'm limited to one 20KG bag and 2x10 kg isn't an option. I should be splitting with my husband but we never get around to doing that because he's been packing on his own for 20 years and knows where everything goes in his bag so he doesn't want to split stuff up. If we have a really tight connection I make him give me some underwear and socks to tied him over and I carry that in my carryon, along with enough for me for several days.)

Assuming the "carry-on" suggestion is mostly unhelpful to you, I would just go with one. Easier to lug around when it is in your possession and simpler to track down if it does go missing. Just pack a few essentials in your carry-on and if your check bag does go missing, just buy what you need and charge it back to the airline after the fact.

It sort of depends on your layover in YYZ. If it's less than a couple hours, there's an offhand chance something might go missing, although on LHR-YYZ-YXE I've only had it happen once, and they had it out to me 24 hours later.

YMMV, but it seems to depend more on the connection in YYZ than anything in my experience, although it's gotten better since mainline service came back to YXE.

Have a great trip, though, and might I recommend Cafe Sola (downtown next to the bus depot, but not as bad as the location would suggest) if you have some spare time and might be needing some caffeine?

I find that if one bag goes, both go. I would follow anti_ice's suggestion. Pack something for a day or two into your carry-on and check the rest in. If your bag does go missing, it's unlikely to stay that way for much more than 24 hours.

Though I did once have a colleague who arrived in Singapore on Air France to find his bag had somehow been sent to Santiago de Chile instead. That took a while to sort out. ;)

Thanks for all the responses, much appreciated.

I think I'll go with the one bag option and pack a couple of essentials in my carry on; my connection turnaround time is 2.5 hours and luckily I'm staying with a friend at my destination, so if something does go missing, I can borrow some clothing!

Thanks once again.

I've flown from LHR to YYZ several times this year, with connecting flights to other parts of Canada with 2 pieces of checked luggage...and have NEVER lost any bags. I'm hoping that good trend continues.