4 Personal Items You Must Keep With You When You Board a Plane

It’s summer vacation time. That means crowded airports and full planes. It also means you’re more likely to find out when you get to the gate that there isn’t enough room for everybody’s carry-on bag.

Before you accept that offer to check yours for free, make sure you remove the following personal items. Put them in your handbag, knapsack, shoulder bag — whatever you put under the seat in front of you.

1. Glasses and Medications

You’re on the plane. Your eyes dry out in the pressurized cabin and you need to remove your contacts. Or you hit a patch of turbulence. This is not the time to realize that your glasses or anti-nausea pills are in the cargo hold.

Be sure you board the plane with your decongestants, painkillers and any other medications you might need during the flight — or after. You never ever want to check prescription medications. They can be very difficult to replace if your plane goes to North Carolina but your luggage lands in South Dakota.

2. Phone chargers and power banks

Fact is, the FAA actually requires that you keep lithium batteries out of your checked luggage and bring them with you on the plane (limit 2 per passenger). And that can come in handy when you get to your destination and the power bar on your phone is reading 6%.

With a fully charged power bank in your carry-on, you can call your talkative aunt and let her yak yak yak while you wait wait wait for your luggage. If you can find an outlet and charge your phone while you wait, that’s even better. You’ll have plenty of juice for when Uber starts sucking power through your GPS to get a driver to you.

3. Cash

We’re talking real live paper dollars here. Or euros, or pesos, or whatever the local currency is going to be. Even if you told the credit card company you’re traveling, you never know when their algorithms are going to tag a swipe as suspicious and freeze your card.

Yes, you can call the credit card company and straighten it out. But while you’re grabbing a snack in the airport or trying to pay a cab driver, it can be a pain. With cash, you can just pay and go.

4. Extra forms of ID, and copies

Even if you’re traveling domestically, it’s a good idea to carry your passport. You don’t keep it in your wallet, like your driver’s license, so it gives you a legally valid ID in case your wallet gets lost or stolen.

If you’re traveling outside the US, your passport is your ID. So make sure you keep a picture of your passport’s photograph page on your phone. In fact, take pictures of all your ID, itinerary, medical insurance cards — all your documents.

And while you’re at it, bring physical photocopies, too. If you need help, they may be the preferred alternative to waking up your phone, swiping to a picture, and enlarging it to show an authority who you are and what you need.

At Alliance Direct Benefits, we’ll still be here for you when you travel or take a vacation. Get peace of mind with the Alliance Value Plan with the Global Emergency Services benefit if you ever need emergency evacuation while traveling. Call us at 1-800-733-2242 (M-F, 7am-5:30pm Central Time) or visit the Alliance Direct Benefits website today!