Avoid lost luggage: Take this one thing off your bags after you fly

Next time you unpack from a trip, take the stickers off your luggage, too.

California’s Ontario International Airport (ONT) posted a TikTok video late last month that shows a man who appears to work at the airport warning travelers that leaving old checked bag tags in place could cause trouble.

“Let’s say you flew American, and then a month later, you flew Southwest. Well, there’s a little sticker that goes on for American that tells the computer that it should go to there,” he said in the video, gesturing across the room.

If the sticker from that American flight is still on your bag, there is a chance it could get scanned, sending the bag to the wrong place. “It might end up over there and not get on the plane,” he said.

The Aug. 22 video has garnered more than 465,000 views as of Tuesday. ONT did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The chance of old tags causing mishaps when you check a bag “isn't terribly high, but it's not zero,” according to Scott Keyes, founder of Going.

“There's no benefit to leaving old bag tags on your checked luggage,” he said in an email. “Any risk of a resulting mix-up, however slight, is higher than the nonexistent benefit.”

What if your checked bag is lost?: Here's what you're owed, what to do.

While luggage can be mishandled for numerous reasons, he added that most mix-ups occur during connections. During those itineraries, checked bags are moved from one plane to another in a short amount of time. “Most of the time it goes fine, but even a small error – like, say, an old bag tag confusing a luggage sorting machine – can cause issues,” he said.

Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. You can reach him at ndiller@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why you shouldn't leave stickers on checked bags when you fly