Just because you check your bag doesn’t mean it will arrive on the same flight as you, especially if you’re connecting flights along the way.

But there’s one tactic that always works for me every time I travel.

When you get your bag tags, make sure that before you board your flight, stop at the gate and ask the agent if he or she can make sure your bags were scanned. It takes seconds but you’ll then know right away if your bags have been loaded onto your flight.

And do that again at your connecting airport.

Almost every airline has relatively sophisticated systems that scan barcodes on each bag tag. And that information is readily available to gate agents.

There’s no point in waiting 40 minutes at your destination for bags that were never loaded in the first place.