So, luggage needs a label on it so that you (or the airline folks, if it gets lost) can identify it. However, I’ve heard NOT to put name and address on the label, because then anyone who sees it knows you’re on vacation, there’s possibly no one home, so let’s scope it out for burglary.
What do y’all think? Should I just put name and phone number on the luggage tag? Or, if they have a phone number, they can look up the address anyhow? Your thoughts? Anyone know what the airlines recommend?
I put an email address.
You only need to put your name and a phone number. I just flew last week and that’s what the clerk at the airline counter told me.
I seriously, seriously, seriously doubt that there are roving mobs of burglars checking out baggage carousels and copying down personal information from the tags on bags.
I always put my destination address. That way, when (not if) they lose my bags, they’ve already begun the process of returning them to the place I am, not the place I came from, when I go to the lost baggage office.
I travel a lot for work and have been doing so for about 10 years. I’ve never once put a luggage tag on my bags, not for security reasons, but because I never think to do it. I’ve had my bags lost a few times and I always got them back from the airlines despite not having address tags on them.
I like to use my business card. On the off chance there really was someone taking info off a luggage tag; if they want to scope out the company I work for then they are welcome to do so.
You can also get address tags with flaps, so that your contact info isn’t immediately visible to nosy passersby.
Or you can use your business card.
I put the information on the card, then insert it into the sleeve facedown with the words “Info on other side” written on the card. If you are using the paper tags supplied by the airlines, tape the tag closed so that someone has to tear it open in order to see the name and address.
Doesn’t take roving mobs; a single thief at the hotel lobby, for instance, or wherever, who has a friend in my home town area (Chicago.)
I used to use my business cards, but now I’m retired so I don’t have a business address. Destination address is a clever idea, but we’re traveling a fair amount nowadays and I don’t want to change the labels every trip. Thanks to all for the suggestions: email sounds perfect.
I have the home and destination address and phone numbers, and my cell #. I also keep a copy inside the suitcase.
Wow, some people are paranoid. Not something I’d worry about.
Quoth WhyNot:
That depends on how long you’re going to be there, though. Sometimes, that just means that your bags will get there just as you’re leaving.
True. I don’t think I’ve ever flown anywhere I wasn’t staying for a week or more, though. Even the worst airlines have been able to get my bags to me within a week.
They work *real *quick when your dad packs frozen fish you caught yourself inside your luggage, too. FYI. 
On the topic of roving mobs of criminals hanging out around luggage…
I have always been amazed at just how lax security is around everyone’s luggage.
In theory, you are supposed to present your hang-tag stub to an attendant when you leave with your luggage, but that has only ever happened to me two or three times over decades of flying.
What’s to keep some stranger from walking into Newark Airport and waiting around until some bags make a few trips 'round (and the owners are probably somewhere else) and then grabbing them and walking off?
But they still never check my tags. Maybe I just have an honest countenance.
When does that become carrion?
Name and number. Also on a piece of paper inside the suitcase. Tags can be torn off by people and machinery.
And if they lose your bag on the return trip?
Trust me as a former professional road warrior (on the road 28 weeks out of the year) Once you file a missing bag report, they know where to send the bag. They will send it to the address on the report you filed when the bag is reported stolen. Airlines are not complete idiots, they know that 50% of the people traveling are not going home.
ETA I use a business card, or fill out the info on the card that comes with the luggage tag.
That’s what I use, though I’ll probably use an email address from now on. I’ve always put my destination and home phone number on the tag, and write out my name, phone numbers, home and destination address on an index card, which I put INSIDE the luggage.
This has always boggled me. I’ve never even seen an attendant around the luggage carousel, it’s just a free-for-all of people. I guess the airline doesn’t really care what happens to your stuff once they’ve scanned it for everything and got it to the destination, but I can’t believe more stuff doesn’t get stolen.