According to the most recent report from the Department of Transportation, an estimated 25 million airline bags out of 4.3 billion don’t make it to their destination.

While that’s actually down from years past, the reasons for those losses haven’t changed. In many cases, it happens when the routing label gets damaged during transit or gets misprinted and can not be read by scanners.

So double check the labels before your bag is put on the conveyor belt — especially the three letter code of your final destination airport.

Then, do what I do.

Before you travel, get some masking tape and write your last name and cell phone number on it with a permanent marker. Then, tape it to the inside of your bag. That way, if the outside bag tag gets damaged or is ripped off, you can still be contacted.