KabAir

Would appreciate any insight. Flying tonight EWR-BCN (currently delayed), family of 5. We checked 5 bags a couple of hours ago and I was handed our receipts. The person handling our baggage noted the weird fact that an “extra” tag had printed and he shrugged his shoulders and tossed it. I did see all 5 of our bags get loaded up onto the conveyer belt.

So I’m sitting here and thought I’d check our bag progress… and there are only 4 bags showing. I pulled out our receipts, and 2 of them are duplicates. Meaning 2 of our bags were tagged with the same baggage tag number. That’s why they had been confused about an extra tag. One of our tags printed twice, and they tagged two separate bags with the duplicates.

So my question is what the heck now? Is it likely that all 5 of our bags will still show up? Or is there going to be some sort of problem when one of the bags with the duplicate tag gets scanned to load, and then they try to scan the other bag with the duplicate tag? And it we show up in BCN and only 4 bags show up, what do I do then? Is there any way of proving I checked the 5th bag? Other then showing them I have duplicate receipts?

WheelsUpGal

The app is probably only showing 4 bags because it can’t read one number twice. My theory is, if the destination is correct, your bag will show up. (Also, Amazon has a sale on AirTags)

KabAir

Thanks, hope you’re right. And yeah, definitely time for Air Tags

WheelsUpGal

Do let us know!

On a LH codeshare the check in kiosk in Bergen spit out a bag tag for one flight that no longer existed. I only knew that because I checked the LH app. Lesson learned, I gotta know more than the airline! All your bags HAVE a tag, right? I believe they’ll make it!

WheelsUpGal

PS. The bag tags all have your Record Locator number on them so one way or the other, they will find you.

KabAir

Will do! Yes they all have a tag, just two of them have the “same” tag. So my fear being one of them would get rejected for loading or something. But we shall see. Fingers crossed!

username

So, the system printed 6 tags for 5 bags - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5. The agent probably threw out 4 so the bags have 1, 2, 3, 5, 5.

I doubt the enroute scanners would do anything to kick out the duplicate. The fact it is a nonstop flight also reduces any problems.

Is there still positive baggage matching? Would that cause any issue?

KabAir

Update: The bags all arrived just fine. Thank goodness. Still going to go buy Air Tags!

Kmxu

You are lucky.
I checked two bags from China. They made it to SFO. I re-checked my bags at SFO after customs. One of them did not make the connection to Richmond via DEN. I was 100% sure that both were loaded to DEN-RIC flight when I checked the bag status. I was surprised that one of them did not come out at RIC. Perhaps, a bag scanner in DEN thought that the bag was on a wrong flight number (not destination!) and pulled it down to send it to another flight. The flight numbers for SFO-DEN and DEN-RIC were identical.

WheelsUpGal

Yay!! That’s great! I do recommend AirTags though. The location is not immediate - but good enough to show you that your bag has been left behind in Nashville (or wherever).

As a teen in CT, we always flew United out to California to visit relatives. And United ALWAYS lost our bags on the return. Not “lost” but they failed to make the connection in ORD. They would show up the next day, and it happened every summer for quite a few years (1970’s).

Thanks for the good news! Enjoy your trip.

kirkwoodj

Glad to hear, would definitely have been a bit stressful!