These Reddit Detectives Helped Find Someone's Lost Luggage Almost Instantly
A seemingly impossible internet mission turned out to be a success.
Sometimes, random, super annoying things happen to you, and you feel like you're living in hell. Other times, though, luck is so on your side that your life might as well be a movie.
Both things recently happened to one traveling Redditor. A couple of days ago, Reddit user TheJoePilato screamed into the void of one of the many popular subreddits on the platform, dubbed r/RBI (Reddit Bureau of Investigation). He'd lost his luggage, which the airline delivered to the wrong address, and he had been trying to figure out where it was located in Manhattan from a single, vague picture of the suitcase in a building lobby.
"They delivered my luggage, allegedly to the address I gave them on 52nd street in Manhattan, to some random address then sent me a confirmation picture," reads Joe's cry for help. "Does anybody know this lobby? It looks like a hotel since I see a key drop and a sign for live music. I've been looking at every rearranging of my address but none are hotels."
In the post, he proceeds to explain that Lufthansa, the airline in charge of delivering his luggage, hadn't been of help so far, and nobody had contacted him despite the contact information stored on his luggage. A link to a blurry photo follows, together with Joe's desperate update. "I'm currently walking into every hotel on the street."
Somehow, the void screamed back, and Joe had an answer the same day he posted his plea.
"SpringHill Suites by Marriott New York Manhattan/Times Square South," commented one person, who goes by the username bb72pp on Reddit. The location was correct, and soon after, Joe victoriously replied to the comment. "Got the suitcase. Do you have any charities you like?" He then asked the follow-up question everybody wanted to ask: "Also how did you do this?"
According to the tech-savvy user, all it took them was to head over to Booking.com and scroll through the listings of Manhattan hotels. Then, they filtered them for the ones that have blue walls in the lobby (just like the blurry photo showed), and the winner showed up within the first 50 or so they looked at—double luck!
Actually, it probably was triple luck. The chosen charity was that of the Homeless Cat Management Team nonprofit which, according to the user, does amazing work in Pittsburgh, and all it took to save some kittens was a missing suitcase in Manhattan.