There’s a basic axiom in travel that there are only two kinds of luggage, carry on and lost. Sometimes you don’t have a choice in checking your bags. You might be flying on a foreign airline that weighs cabin bags, or simply have too much stuff to fit in the overhead bin. But you don’t want to waste your life in lines to drop off your bags, or standing around in airports hoping your luggage gets delivered back to you.

Here are 3 reasons why you don’t want to check a bag:

• You have to show up at the airport earlier if you’re checking a bag. Check-in cutoff time usually means 15 extra minutes, but bag check also often means standing in lines – to get the bag tagged, to drop it off – and the time that takes can vary pushing you to show up earlier still.

• You’re stuck at the airport longer after your trip. Alaska Airlines was first to offer a checked bag guarantee (in 2009) and Delta copied them. Both of those airlines consistently deliver bags quickly, but even there it takes longer than just leaving the airport. With other carriers, expect thirty minutes and sometimes sixty.

• Checked bags get lost. Your risk increases substantially on a connecting itinerary – your bag doesn’t get just loaded and unloaded, that process repeats twice and it has to be transferred. A delay of one flight influences whether it makes the next one. I’ve even had bags intentionally misdirected by baggage handlers as part of a job action against their company because contract negotiations were dragging on.

I often hear something along the lines of, “oh you have to wait 10 minutes extra at the bag carousel before leaving on the other end? Heavens what an inconvenience.” And that’s just the wrong way to think about it.

My favorite way to travel is without even a rollaboard. On a simple overnight I’ll bring just my laptop bag. Occasionally on a two night trip I’ll stretch things and overstuff the laptop bag. It’s liberating not to worry about needing overhead bin space, and therefore needing to board early. I can arrive at the airport close to departure or work longer in an airline lounge and stroll onto the plane close to the end of boarding or whenever is most convenient.

If I’m checking bags, though, because I simply must travel with too much stuff – I’ll generally go with a checked bag on trips over a week and when I’m with my wife and daughter we wind up checking bags as well – then consider these 4 simple rules.

• Pay attention to what credit card you use. Many rewards cards, especially from Chase, will offer delayed and lost bag coverage. You’ll initially be able to get up to $100 per day for 5 days when bags aren’t delivered on time, and have contents covered if the airline doesn’t find the bags.

• Once you’re checking bags anyway, make use of your baggage allowance. If you have to show up early at the airport to check bags and wait after your flight to collect them it doesn’t much matter if you check one or three so don’t worry about using your entire allotment of free bags.

• Don’t check anything that really matters. Checked bags aren’t a reason not to carry anything at all onto the plane. If you have prescription medicines, don’t check those. Anything valuable or difficult to replace shouldn’t be checked either. You need to carry those on, and if it’s enough stuff may still mean a carry on bag – and a fight for bin space – even though you’re checking a suitcase.

• Consider Airtags. I actually don’t think they’re worth it, considering the odds on a given trip of lost luggage are fairly low (less than 1% with most airlines) and since you shouldn’t have anything valuable in your checked bags to begin with, but they’ll give you a sense of control knowing where your bags are without having to rely on the airline (even though you’ll need the airline’s help – or law enforcement’s – to actually secure the bag once it’s lost).

To be sure, know your airline’s carry on rules. Make sure your bag is going to fit in the sizer, and if you have a rollaboard be sure you’re boarding among the first half of passengers. Otherwise you’re running the risk of having your bag gate checked, which means it might get lost and you’ll waste time waiting for it at the end of your journey.

Airlines are frequently aggressive requiring passengers to gate check bags even when there’s plenty of overhead bin space left. It’s one of the two most frequent complaints I see on twitter, and this is regardless of airlines (other than Southwest).

This is because gate agents don’t want to risk passengers wasting time looking for bin space, and worse yet not finding any and having to gate check their bags in the minutes prior to doors close. The plane might push back a minute or two late as a result, and with some carriers that’s a mark on the agent. They’d rather make sure they don’t get to that stage. It’s one reason that the lack of larger overhead bins is so frustrating on some carriers and fleet types, when those bins are readily available for installation.

If your bag definitely fits in the sizer, and you’re asked to gate check, be nice. You’re probably out of luck, but nicely tell the agent that you’re interlining on separate tickets and will miss your connection if you have to wait for your bags at baggage claim and re-clear security and please have sympathy and let you hunt for bin space. It might work!