Probably more like 5-6 times that estimate, lol. Chanels are wickedly expensive. But soooo pretty.

No, some responses were clearly victim blaming, as is your "you seem very irritated" comment. Who exactly wouldn't be irritated?

Anyone would be irritated by a stolen bag. But having to check a large carry-on is a by-product of flying on a plane of a certain size. It's not really the gate attendant's fault that there isn't room for everyone's luggage, so there is no reason to take that personally.

Pointing that out isn't "victim blaming", it's pointing out one of the realities of flying: the benefits of traveling light.

It depends on the card. I just checked mine; the Fidelity Visa covers up to $1,000 per item but the Costco Visa covers only $500. The "premium" cards with the steep annual fee may be more generous. I hope the OP has homeowner's insurance.

On getting stuff out of gate-checked bags: I once had a picky gate agent tell me I had to stick my small leather purse I wore on a strap around my neck into one of my carry-ons (computer bag that went under my seat plus a medium-sized backpack) because I couldn't carry on 3 items. I can imagine a gate agent having a bad day telling me that, having pulled a purse and maybe a laptop out pf my gate-checked bag and brought on a "regular" purse as well, that I had too many items to carry on. I like the approach described earlier: Head down the jetway, assess the overhead situation, maybe even get into your seat and remove important items and gate-check if necessary.

It's easy to look at decisions in hindsight and say, "you should have done X" but we don't always think clearly under pressure and while dealing with jet lack and lack of sleep. I just returned from a trip to Chicago from Des Moines with my granddaughters, ages 5 and 8, and I told them the two rules of travel when something goes wrong are (1) Keep calm and (2) Use your brain.

I do not always follow that advice. :)

Have you not seen the UK bag fiasco from earlier this year?
Since I can't "post references to commercial sites" (which my earlier post, was not), do a choose-your-search-engine-search (not commercial reference) for "Man uses AirTags and PowerPoint presentation to ask airline for his lost bags".

And to answer your... "how on earth..." question:
There are 2 billion Apple products in use today. It's passive, but works extremely well.
This is how (1) we found my buddy's iPad - which had been turned off and attempted to be wiped clean, and (2) tracked my mother's car from Florida to New York. Previously my mother paid $20/month for an iPad (cellular) plan, but the (free) AirTag tracking was nearly as accurate and nearly as real-time - sometimes even better when the iPad lost mobile service or... battery ran out.

I will leave the difference between lost, mislaid and stolen but abandoned to the reader.
And in the case of airlines, yes, a few cases have been recorded and given a lot of press, but in the UK fiasco you mentioned thousands of other bags, many with commercial trackers, did not benefit. Feel free to buy them, just don't expect too much, and realize that outside the USA Apple market presence ranges from smaller to insignificant.

I don’t think you understand the meaning of dedicated overhead space. It does not mean the same thing as guaranteed overhead space. Your argument was totally irrelevant


And your announcement that you will not check carry-ons anymore may mean that you discover you don’t get to get on the plane.😂

I've tried Tile and other things, and while they're all imperfect, I'd trust them more than an airline. And FWIW, I worked on two RFID pilots with Delta (pallets and ULD's, prior to pax baggage).

If I'm flying to India (doubtful) or another "emerging" area, I'm less concerned with losing my bag and more concerned with dying of something we lack vaccines for.