International Travel Tip: DON'T BE NICE TO PEOPLE ON AIRPLANES.

There's one place in the world where I seem to break promises and that's on this site. Not only did I stop crossposting stuff from TechCrunch and promoting my BusinessWeek columns (something you know I'm remedying if you've been reading lately), but I also promised an international travel tip for each trip. And then I forgot. I suppose the China one could be "Don't split a bottle of Baijiu, or if you do, don't take valuable possessions out with you that night."

My India one is more cynical: Don't be nice to people on airplanes.

Last night, I was boarding the second leg of my flight to India-- a brutal 15 hour one. In coach. In what was supposed to be an exit row, but wasn't. In what was supposed to be an aisle seat, but wasn't. Behind two crying children. I saw the seat, and immediately made sure I'd packed either an Ambien or a suicide pill.

But it wasn't all bad. I wasn't dead-center of the row, had a tiny polite Indian man sitting next to me, and an empty seat on the other side. I can make that work.

Just then a guy came up and begged me to switch with him because he had an elderly grandfather he needed to sit next to. Everyone else in my section looked down at a magazine, hoping they wouldn't get asked in case I said no. I politely agreed to move, provided that he could find a place for my suitcase. Overhead space was at a huge premium on this flight and, as readers know, I NEVER check a bag. He said he'd just swap it with his bag. I didn't actually see this happen, he just came and told me he did and I took his word for it.

Oh, and I got to the seat-- dead center, next to a young child, in a seat that didn't recline. You've got to be kidding me.

The flight wasn't so bad, thanks to the Ambien and eight months of international travel that has trained me to go into a zen-like state even in the worst coach situation. I slept about 10 hours of it, and wasn't even that annoyed that the kid next to me pretty much slept half in my seat most of the time. Then we went to de-plane and wouldn't you know it? My bag is NOWHERE IN SIGHT. As you can see from the picture on the link above, it's a bright green bag and hard to miss. I had to wait for the entire plane to deplane, then I, the guy who I was doing "a huge favor for" and about three flight attendants searched every single bin on the plane. No bag.

They told me to leave the plane and go with an agent to arrivals where we'd try to find whoever took it. Oh lovely. In the tunnel from the plane to the gate, I looked at the guy and just said "Unbelievable." And he brushed it off saying, "Hey, it's not my fault. I put it in the bin." At which point-- after some 24 hours of travel and the prospect of nearly a month in India with no clothes-- I snapped a bit. "As far as I'm concerned this is exactly your fault. I did you a favor; I didn't see you move the bag; you were the last one to touch it and now it's mysteriously gone. That's certainly not my fault."

A flight attendant immediately snapped at me and told me I needed to take a deep breath and apologize to him. Um.....does anyone else think I was out of line? Under the circumstances, I think I'd been quite calm until this point.

Before I could cause a bigger scene, the suitcase was produced as if from nowhere by a flight attendant. "See it's not his fault!" she said.

"Where was it?" I demanded.

"In the bin where he said he'd put it," she said.

Hmm...that's interesting considering all five of us looked in that bin-- and every other bin on the plane-- and didn't see it. Reminded me of my favorite children's book "Morris's Disappearing Bag." American Airlines must have disappearing bins just to create such dramatic situations. I literally can not think of another answer. It's too bad they told me to leave the plane just minutes before it was reproduced, because I would have love to have seen that magic trick.

Anyway, I stomped off, went through customs and got in a car to the hotel. But I'm still annoyed that I gave myself a far-worse seat on a 15-hour plane ride, was essentially detained a good thirty minutes, and then got treated like the bad guy by everyone. That will teach me to be nice. 

Of course, the really sad thing is I'm such a push-over I'd do it again if someone with an elderly grandparent asked. I'd just move the damn bag myself. 

I have to add as a post-script: I hope this losing or almost-losing of bags on every trip isn't a new trend for me. I'm already on a backup backpack, borrowed camera, and spare laptop after the China-Baijiu debacle. It's particularly fitting given the working title of the book in progress is "Nothing to Lose." Pretty soon I'm going to embody it! And that's ironic because with my last book, "Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good," plenty of reviewers mused that I may have just been lucky with the first book. I think I'm naming my third book: "I Just Won a Million Dollars" just in case there's something to the trend.