A chaotic travel experience for a United Airlines passenger ended this week after he used an Apple AirTag to help track down his missing luggage.
Valerie Szybala went viral after sharing her experience in a Twitter thread about how he put the tech accessory, which works with iPhones and other Apple devices to track and find belongings, in his suitcase.
Szybala, who was not available for an interview on Tuesday, said she was then able to track the location of her bag throughout the delivery process.
“I would like everyone to know that @united has lost track of my bag and is lying about it,” she said. tweeted Sunday. “My Apple AirTag shows that it has been in a residential apartment complex for more than a day. In the back, next to the dumpsters, I found other empty United Airlines bags.”
Szybala also tweeted screenshots of her conversation with a United representative, who told her to “calm down” when she brought up concerns about her baggage delivery.
The representative stopped responding to her after she asked about United’s lost baggage policy, she said.
After spending three days exploring the apartment complex, Szybala was contacted by the courier in charge of the delivery and reunited with her bag on Monday, according to mashable.
The delivery service, Couriers United LLC, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson said United “has contacted this customer to discuss this situation and confirm that they received their baggage,” adding: “The service provided by our baggage delivery provider does not meet our standards and we are investigating what happened that led to this service failure.”
Szybala’s travel woes came as many across the country faced flight delays and travel problems. All carriers were affected by a major winter storm that affected most of the US before Christmas weekend. Southwest Airlines, which canceled thousands of flights last week and angered passengers, said Tuesday it was making “solid progress” processing refunds.
After her tumultuous journey to retrieve her lost luggage, Szybala advised people to take precautionary measures when traveling, including taking pictures of items in bags for reimbursement purposes and opting out of delivery of lost bags by part of third parties.
“Third party delivery service is where this got sketchy IMHO,” she tweeted.
He urged people to use tracking devices like AirTags on their luggage, which he said was a “lifesaver.”
Air tags have it shot itself in popularity on Amazon amid recent Southwest Airlines flight cancellations, though the devices have been criticized for allowing unwanted tracking in the past. AirTags have been used to track lost luggage before, when a woman used hers to track her luggage near the home of an airline subcontractor. The subcontractor, Giovanni De Luca, was arrested after authorities found stolen items at his home.
