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A woman who tracked her lost luggage with AirTag has been reunited with her belongings, but only after she gained significant media attention.
Valerie Szybala recently took to Twitter to document how United Airlines lost her luggage, then proceeded to insist she was wrong about where the tracking device said it was.
Now, the story seems to end happily, with Szybala reporting that her luggage had been returned to her as of Monday afternoon.
WHEW this has been a wild ride y'all. I'm happy to report that I got my bag back!!! I'll give more details & lessons learned later. For now wanna say thank you for all of the support, and shout out to the building resident and local news crews who came out to help =) pic.twitter.com/hCDXMreiDC
— valerie szybala. (@vszyb) January 2, 2023
Previously, Szybala's AirTag showed her bag at a residential apartment, even though United Airlines insisted that the bag was "safe at the Delivery services distribution center."
Later, the bag was tracked to a McDonalds, a shopping center, and then returned to the apartment complex.
According to Szybala, she returned to the apartment complex accompanied by a local news crew when she received a "sketchy" text from someone claiming to be a courier. The courier told her the bag had been erroneously delivered to a different passenger.
The courier returned her bag, which was still locked and had all its contents. Szybala did not question the courier's story as she was "too excited to have [her] bag to ask whether he'd had it all weekend."
She ends the Twitter thread by telling travelers to use a tracking device like AirTag and photograph their belongings in the event that they need to file a reimbursement claim.
This is not the first time that AirTags have revealed unexpected journeys of the luggage they are placed in. In June 2022, one man tracked down his missing baggage to an office in Melbourne Airport. Then in August 2022, a couple visiting Portugal reported that their luggage got to see more of the country than they did.
Also, in late 2022, Lufthansa briefly banned AirTags on a hopefully mistaken interpretation of FCC regulations regarding batteries. It then reversed the decision.
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