CNN - US travelers lose millions of suitcases every year. Their contents wind up at a store in Alabama

[DFW]

14. I found that out the hard way many years ago.

The tags, both mine and the airline's, had been torn off in transit. I asked and asked at the Düsseldorf airport, and they traced my bag to having been transferred at JFK to the flight to Düsseldorf. Since then, no trace. Finally, I got what turned out to be the best luggage detective at the Düsseldorf airport. She asked all the "right" questions, and found a listing of a piece of mail inside the suitcase. They had thought my middle name was part of my last name, which is why they never associated it with me. I give them my Dallas address, and it matched. Two minutes later, I was retrieving my month-long lost bag from their stock of orphaned suitcases.

From then on, any time we travel, I make up a sheet with our names, contact info, home and US addresses, with mobile phone numbers in both countries and addresses and expected times of where we are to be found. At least one, and usually two of those sheets go inside each piece of checked luggage before it leaves our house for the airport.