Yes, if you have an iPhone: for $29 and no subscription, an AirTag has helped me locate a delayed bag faster than the airline's own tracking twice, though it's not built for real-time GPS and lags when your bag is far from other Apple devices.
I started putting an AirTag in every checked bag after a flight home from Lisbon where my suitcase didn't show up on the carousel and the airline's app just said 'in transit' for six hours. My AirTag showed it sitting in a specific terminal the whole time, which meant I could point baggage services to an actual location instead of filing a claim and hoping.
The tech itself is simple and that's the appeal. There's no app to fuss with beyond Apple's Find My, no monthly fee, and the battery has lasted almost a full year in my main travel one before the low-battery alert popped up. Because it piggybacks on every iPhone nearby rather than needing its own cell connection, it works in places a cellular tracker wouldn't, like the back of an airport where I've genuinely watched the dot update as someone walked past with an iPhone in their pocket.
The catch is real, though. When a bag ends up somewhere with no Apple devices around, like deep in a cargo hold mid-flight, the location just freezes until it passes near someone's phone again. It's not a live GPS beacon, so if you're expecting a real-time moving map the way a dedicated $150 GPS tracker gives you, you'll be disappointed. And if you or your travel companion carries an Android phone, you lose most of the benefit since Apple limits what non-iPhone users can see.
For the price, I still think it's the easiest travel purchase on this list. Even with the lag in dead zones, having any location data beats the airline's app guessing, and at $29 it's cheap enough that I don't think twice about tossing one in every bag I check.
Rachel Reviews may earn a commission from links on this site.
That never changes which products get covered or how they're rated.
See the methodology. © 2026.