The 8 essential tips to stop airlines losing your luggage...

IT'S every holidaymakers nightmare - stepping off the plane at your holiday destination only to find your luggage hasn't made it with you. Yet it happens to millions of us every year. It's easy to avoid this job, but it's always safer to remove old airline tags and stickers from your case.

Image Credit: The Sun [Woman walking toward an airplane on a runway with luggage.]

Bags are scanned at multiple points along their journey so it can be easy to confuse scanners with old flight info. If the worst does happen and you're left empty handed at the baggage carousel, this will help you cope with the first few days of your trip.

Image Credit: The Sun [A tired woman sits alone in an airport, head in hands, holding her passport and boarding pass.]

Make sure to pack things like your wallet, toothbrush, medicine, phone chargers and a spare pair of pants in your carry-on. Let's face it - a lot of bags look the same, so it can be hard to identify them from a distance. Invest in a tough, brightly-coloured luggage tag to make it easier to spot yours out of a line-up.

Image Credit: The Sun [Airline employee attaching a luggage tag to a suitcase.]

You can even purchase personalised luggage tags online if you like to mix style with practicality. Don't overlook the chance of your luggage tag being ripped off during transit - it's common for cases to get chucked around on their journeys and even the toughest labels can be torn off.

Image Credit: The Sun [Woman's hand holding a red suitcase with a straw hat on top, airplane and palm trees in the background.]

For this reason, it's a good idea to keep your contact details inside your bag too, so if a good Samaritan does find it and look inside, they'll know how to reach you. Popping a smart tracker inside your case is an easy to way to locate your luggage in a flash.

Image Credit: The Sun [Hands placing carry-on luggage in overhead bin.]

The 'Find My' app even has a Notify When Found feature, where other iPhone users can help you locate your lost luggage. Android users don't have access to the 'Find My' app, so they'll need to rely on a Bluetooth GPS tracker, which has a more limited range.

Remove all straps that aren't absolutely necessary for carrying your luggage. This will make sure your bag doesn't get hooked on anything while journeying through baggage handling. Although this won't prevent your luggage from going missing, this two-second hack is a great way to help identify your bag if it does.

If you have to reach out to the lost property department you'll be able to easily show them what your luggage looks like, so they're more able to find it. Getting to check-in nice and early is the best way to make sure the airline staff can process your luggage in a calm and organised manner.