Apple AirTag saves Aussie traveller missing $500 flight: 'Investment'
Bob Marshall has urged Aussies to invest in an AirTag tracking device after his luggage was lost.
An Aussie man claims his Apple AirTag saved him forking out $500 for another flight after he lost his luggage on the last day of his holiday, admitting he would have likely missed his flight home to hunt down his bag.
Melbourne man Bob Marshall visited Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia with his wife last month and used rideshare company Grab "every day" to get around. However, on his last day, he left one of his bags in a rideshare car and only realised hours later that his valuables were missing — just a few hours before his flight home.
"On my last day, I left my bag in the boot of my Grab car... I was thinking, 'Should I miss my flight? What should I do?'," he told Yahoo News.
After contacting the Grab administration team and hearing nothing back, the clock was ticking before his international flight until he remembered he had attached an Apple AirTag to his bag. He frantically searched for its location and the tracking device led him exactly to it.
"I immediately found my bag [which was] parked outside a housing complex more than one hour drive away," he explained.
Lost luggage inside car parked among 'hundreds' of others
Marshall's accommodation manager had jumped in to help him. She "packed her children" into her car and followed the AirTag as it moved further and further away from its initial location.
Eventually, the AirTag was stationary, and the woman "hopped out of her car and searched through markets" on foot in a bid to find the lost luggage. She pinpointed the exact car it was in and it just so happened to be "parked among hundreds of others" in a car park.
"She was lucky enough to get a ping [on her phone] when she walked past a car... she was able to pin it down by walking away and then coming back," Marshall said, explaining how the woman managed to confirm the location of the AirTag. "But she was then walking around asking people, 'Do you know who owns this car?"
She was able to get in contact with the Grab driver after asking people passing by, and she retrieved the bag in time, returning it to Marshall before his flight.
"The driver was shocked when his customer was standing at his car saying I want my bag back," Marshall laughed. "I was happy I had my luggage but Grab was less than useful... the AirTag was absolutely amazing," he said.
Traveller admits $49 'investment' saved him missing flights
Marshall told Yahoo News he would have chosen to miss his flight to track down his bag, believing there would have been no hope of getting it back if he'd left the country.
He claims he received no help from Grab, and the $49 AirTag was the determining factor between him getting his bag back. He has since said he won't travel without putting one on his luggage.
"It is a small investment that can save you a lot in the end," he said.
Travel expert calls tracking devices 'fabulously good' idea
There have been a number of incidents where travellers have found an AirTag inside their luggage and feared someone has intentionally put it there for sinister purposes. However, with more people choosing to put tracking devices on their luggage while travelling, the increase in usage could simply be leading to an increase in "innocent scenarios" and doesn't necessarily mean it is cause for concern.
"It could have been that someone was inspecting a bag [at the airport] and it came out and then they misplaced it and put it in the wrong bag. That's the innocent scenario," travel expert Quentin Long told Yahoo News previously when speaking about travellers finding AirTags that don't belong to them inside their luggage.
He believes it's a "fabulously good" idea for travellers to buy an AirTag or similar tracking device so they can keep tabs on their luggage if, in a situation like Marshall's, their luggage is lost.
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