QR luggage tags that keep your details private

Most bags that miss the carousel have simply missed the flight and arrive on a later one. What you do before you leave the airport decides how easily you get yours back.

1. 1Don't leave the baggage hall. Go to your airline's baggage desk, or its handling agent's, before you go through customs. Reporting it later is possible but slower.
2. 2File a Property Irregularity Report. The desk records your bag's description and your contact details in a Property Irregularity Report, often called a PIR. Keep the reference number; every follow-up uses it.
3. 3Give a delivery address. Tell them where you'll be for the next few days, so a found bag can be sent on rather than held at the airport.
4. 4Keep receipts for essentials. Airlines will often refund reasonable costs, like toiletries and a change of clothes, while your bag is delayed. Ask the desk what they cover and keep every receipt.
5. 5Put it in writing in time. Under the Montreal Convention, which covers most international flights, claim in writing within 21 days of getting a delayed bag back, or within 7 days for damage. If a delayed bag still hasn't turned up after 21 days, you can claim for it as lost.

Contact the operator's lost property office as soon as you can, with the date, the route or journey, roughly where you were sitting and a description of the case. Large stations and city transport networks run their own lost property offices; taxi firms usually hold things at their office or with the driver.

Hotels keep left luggage and forgotten items for a while too, so ring the front desk if the case went missing during a stay.

• Photograph your case from the outside and the inside before you pack it. A photo is quicker to share than a description.
• Put a copy of your itinerary inside the case, so staff who open it know where you're heading.
• Keep medicines, chargers, documents and a change of clothes in your hand luggage.
• Make the case easy to pick out: a coloured strap or a distinctive tag stops other passengers taking it by mistake.

A luggage label with your name and home address tells everyone who walks past your bag that you're away from home. Labels also tear off, get soaked, or go out of date when you move.

A scaniflost sticker carries a QR code and nothing personal. Whoever finds your case scans it and sees what it is and your first name, with a box to tell you where it is. You're emailed straight away, wherever you are.

The finder's page follows the language of their phone, in ten languages, so it works when your case ends up somewhere you didn't.

• On a flat, smooth part of the shell, where it can be seen without opening anything.
• One on the outside and one inside the lid, in case the outside one is scuffed off.
• A key tag on the handle as well, if you'd like a second way in.
• The stickers are water and scratch resistant vinyl, made to cope with rain and baggage belts. They're water resistant, not waterproof, so don't plan on putting a case through a car wash.