Good grief we travel with a ridiculous amount of techno stuff! All of us have at least one cell phone. Check. Laptop? Check. Tablet? Check. Cords, cables & voltage adapters? Check. But have you ever had that:
“sick to your stomach,
cold chill
moment of complete terror feeling”
when you check where one of these items “should be” and you find the place empty? Did your wife, kids or whoever NOT put it back where it should be (it is never our fault right)? Then you check place two (oh yeah, I guess I did put it there when leaving the plane). Your heart rate slowly, over 5 minutes, returns to its normal rate and calm creeps back in while you put up with “looks” from your family for blaming them.
I want you to please take the time to read THIS article from NBC to see just how bad this situation is.
OK now that you are back, so what do we do about it? There are simple things like each of these items should have a home. Before you deplane make sure all the toys are in their homes.
Since “Track It Back” is now defunct and out of business, the next step will cost a few bucks (or you can just use your printer too). I have just done this and I think you should too. VistaPrint.com sells 1½” round stickers. They come in sheets of 24 and 5 sheets with glossy finish (120 stickers) gets you to $29 to get free S&H.
Now if you start at eBates we BOTH get $5.00 back with your first order ever using eBates and everyone gets 5% cash back (evrewards.com shows other sites for a few % more if you like) and the cost drops down under $25 plus the points you earn for using whatever points credit card you want.
With 120 stickers you can put them on everything you own with your name, address, e-mail address & cell phone number! I used a black background and gray text to make my stickers and you can download the black background if you want to use it HERE.
Will this guarantee you will get your item back? No! But if this happens to you, right away go to THIS PART of Delta.com and file with Delta that you left an item onboard or in a Skyclub etc!
With all our info on the items we will have a better chance if an honest person or FA finds our stuff that they will contact us to get it back to us. For $25 this is worth it to me! Good idea? What do you think? – Rene
PS – let’s do this today. Tell me Yes, No or even what you have lost or forgot on a plane, airport, rental car or hotel for a chance to win a Delta swag prize including a T-Shirt, luggage tag and a Delta “tail” key chain!
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Ive left my iPhone charger at numerous different hotels. I always seem to forget it
Not sure I would go to this length, I have never lost anything traveling until my last trip. And it sucked because it was my car keys. 11pm in an off site parking lot with 2 children and my wife and no way to get in my car and drive home. I don’t think I would have tagged my keys.
Great tip! I guess you can also just use a piece of paper and clear Scotch tape to achieve the same effect, plus saving some $25!
YES! I’m totally getting those stickers! Great idea!
@LX – yep mentioned that. Maybe you could make a “word” template with circles and fields and I can upload it to my site and put in a link? For me worth it to have VP just do it. – Rene
Yes and love the idea too.
Chargers. Lot of chargers over the Yeats though fortunately none recently!
The first thing I ever lost on a plane was a library book from elementary school.
@B – ouch! Can’t put a sticker on that. 😉
I should buy phone chargers in bulk…
I have a great memory…it’s just very short
I could use all the help i can get…period!
If it ain’t nailed down…i can lose it!!!
Lost a smartphone in ATL. Ouch!…Immediately called the number only to be screamed at in Spanish…Pulled up my Lookout account on the web, locked my phone forever, and erased my information from the phone via Lookout’s system…Still a major pain, but less worry…Have this on all our phones and pads…
I’ve forgotten a charger once in a hotel room and that’s it! Thankfully.
Once,my friend forgot his $3000 Macbook on the seat next to him at the boarding area.
How does one forget about $3000 sitting next to you. Heck, if I owned a $3000 piece of equipment, I would tie myself with a string to it! 🙂
Lucky for him, the agent at the gate spotted it and it was held in safekeeping.
I left my cell phone in a hotel, charging in the bathroom. I realized it on my way to the airport. Frantically, I called the carrier to suspend the account and called the hotel. Housekeeping hadn’t been to the room yet but they sent someone up and there it was. They sent it to me the next day.
I almost left my iPhone in a Taiwan hotel but I remembered it after checkout and was able to retrieve it before we left for airport.
Only once and almost twice isn’t too bad.
Ipod left in Hotel room. Got it back!!!
This is a good idea and works with other possessions too. Especially thing you loan out.
Left my camera battery and the charger at the KLM lounge in AMS. Called them up to find it, which they did. 4 Months later I was on a trip to India via AMS, and they gave me the charger + the battery back. Fantatic! but a rare ocassion nonetheless. I’d def go with the some kinda id-tags!
I’ve left glasses on a plane before after multiple back-to-back red eye flights. Fortunately, I was able to retrieve them before they flew off.
Ive left magazines and boarding passes on planes.
More important is the security on the device. Most of these devices have an incredible amount of personal info, and access to more. As someone who left a brand new iPad 3 in a seat back in first class (one week after release), and let Delta know 60 minutes after it happen, and had my name engraved into it, I know you will never get it back. I was just happy it was locked down, and my passwords were in a 2nd more secure vault. The only way to use it, was to wipe it out – thus my info was safe.
@Steve – 100% yes. Txs – Rene
I left an iPod nano on an easyJet flight from Barcelona to Stansted — and realized it was missing once I got on my AA flight from LHR to ORD. Now I am obsessive about checking the seat pocket and everything around me! Thanks for the post – good advice about the stickers.
Left an excellent pair of Sony noise cancelling headset on a Northwest flight a few years back; never returned.
Nice umbrella at MIA rental return.
I’ve left hats, jackets and books at one time or another. Luckly nothing I couldn’t live without.
Have left alot of stuff in my rental car.. Never got anything back 🙁
I recently forgot my iphone headset on a Hawaiian Air flight & reported it to baggage services and when I checked back with them a week later, they had found it!
Only frequent thing I constantly seem to lose is my toothbrush charger: hooray for the diamond clean with USB!
A cell phone charger in a hotel, when I asked them about it they brought a box full of cell chargers that they had accumulated over time
I sometimes carry two cell phones and one laptop. For years I have putting the mail stickers we all get hundreds of in the mail, largely from charities on my stuff and I write my phone number on the bottom, obviously putting the other phone number on each phone, This does not cost anything. Or you can buy a pack of the blank stickers and add you e-mail too.
Hi Rene
I left my Kindle on a flight between
SLC and TUS
It had been a gift- I was so upset I called amazon to shut down my open account
Lucky I had a business card with e mail inserted I to case
I received a random e mail asking if I am missing something and replied affirmative
Unsolicited act of Kindness found it’s wAy to me…
I have my work address and though I offered to pay shipping it was declined and
Hope against hope my kindle was returned to me!!!
This makes one feel renewed and is a reminder that there is plenty of Goodness In our world!
Namaste!!!
DeltagoldLass
Never left any stuff, except my wallet (how smart is that…twice over 20 years of travel) at security at airport. Both times it was returned to me before the boarding door was closed!
These all sound like great ideas and I want to add one more that saved my last trip to Rome from total disaster. I lost my passport during the day and had no idea it was missing. Fortunately, I had an Okoban tracker tag on my passport. A waiter where I ate lunch found it and entered my tracker number on the Okoban website and I was sent a text message (and an email) before I ever even knew my passport was missing. Lucky for me because I was leaving in the morning for Germany and getting a new passport would have been impossible. The tags are available through http://www.mystufflostandfound.com. They saved my trip and I now have them on almost everything that goes with me on a trip.
Gordon Burns