Woman uses AirTag to track down luggage lost by United Airlines

AirTag held in hand
(Image credit: Joseph Keller / iMore)

A woman used an AirTag to track down her luggage after United Airlines lost it...and tried to act like they didn't.

Valerie Szybala took to Twitter to share the story, saying that she knew that her luggage was lost by United due to being able to track its location with the AirTag that was stored inside of it.

You have to take a look at the conversation Szybala had with a representative from United. Even after explaining that she could see her luggage was at some random residential apartment complex and finding other pieces of luggage by the dumpster behind the building, the representative said that her luggage was at the "delivery service distribution center."

Oddly, her luggage made multiple trips away from the complex — sometimes to McDonald's — but would return again to the apartment building.

Incredibly, Valerie eventually got her luggage back after being texted by someone who claimed they were from DCA Couriers United. The "courier" eventually met Valerie outside of the complex where two news crews had also shown up to witness the return of the lost bag.

Apple's AirTag strikes again

United has not responded formally to the situation at this point yet, but it certainly has some explaining to do, especially after Szybala took photos of luggage sitting next to dumpsters outside of a random building that was definitely not near the airport.

Apple's AirTag has been in the news for a number of reasons. While some stories are quite concerning and involve people using them for nefarious purposes like stalking, others are positive like Valerie's.

The little item tracker, which can keep track of keys, bags, and more, integrates with Apple's Find My network. If you want to find the best way to deploy AirTag across your life, check out our list of the Best AirTag Accessories in 2022.

Joe Wituschek
Contributor

Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.