When collecting your luggage from the conveyor belt after a trip, it is often hard to identify your bag, especially if it is black or brown. The luggage straps on your bag, especially if you purchase them in a unique design or color, will immediately grab your attention, avoiding the awkwardness of picking up someone else's bag or, even worse, taking it home.
Luggage straps provide an obstacle to a thief getting into your bag. Some are lockable, while others simply clip together, but either way a luggage strap must be removed before the bag can be unzipped.
Whether your suitcase is soft-shell or hard-shell, there is always the possibility that something will break, making closing the suitcase impossible. Often, parts of zippers break on soft-shell bags, while the clips sometimes break on hard-shells. Having luggage straps could be the only thing that enables you to get your bag from the airport to the hotel. Especially if you travel frequently and walk from place to place with your bags, a broken bag could be a miserable delay in your trip. Luggage straps can be fitted tightly around a bag, keeping it closed.
Luggage straps can also be used to connect bags together. For example, a small duffel bag is easily strapped to the handle of a larger rolling bag using a luggage strap. This allows the traveler to pull only one item instead of pulling one and holding one.
Luggage straps are fairly inexpensive, ranging in price from around $5 to $25 depending on the type of strap. With such a small investment, using the straps only occasionally still could make them a worthwhile purchase.
If your luggage straps are not easily removable, airport security may cut them off when randomly searching bags. The best way to avoid this is to purchase the clip variety.
If you are going to be stopping and pulling something out of your bag frequently, having luggage straps on it will make the process much longer and tiring. It is best to use straps only when you will not need access to your bag for some time.
