A woman who took a flight to Mexico with her mother to bask in the sun discovered an important travel lesson firsthand.

Traveling, while exciting, can sometimes be stressful.

It may be stressful, whether it’s the dreaded security checks or constantly checking to make sure your passport hasn’t sprouted legs and leaped out of your luggage.

Another concern arises when you get to your ultimate destination and stand by the baggage carousel to see if your checked-in luggage has arrived safely.

After landing in Puerto Vallarta, Jill Schildhouse of Arizona told Business Insider that she couldn’t find her mother’s luggage.

While Jill immediately recognized her baggage on the carousel, her mother’s evident pink luggage was nowhere to be found.

“After the carousel stopped, an airport employee directed us to the lost luggage counter, where we hoped for a quick resolution,” Jill said.

“Instead, we were handed a huge black suitcase with my mother’s luggage tickets attached. We opened it, perplexed, only to discover clothes and possessions that were clearly not hers.

“At that moment, it was clear something had gone very, very wrong.”

The backpack had not even arrived in Mexico and was currently on vacation without its owner in an entirely other nation.

As Jill and her mother completed the mishandled item report,’ they saw something was wrong.

Jill continued in the Business Insider article, “Once I dug inside my handbag and pulled out the luggage-tag stickers the Phoenix-based crew at American Airlines had given me—the papers I habitually throw into my bag on every trip without a glance — I understood the error.

“My mom’s sticker had no name on it at all. Instead, it held an entirely different message, with a destination that made my stomach drop: Delhi.”

So there must have been a mix-up at check-in, and Jill’s mother ended up with the bags of a passenger headed to Delhi.

While it was unpleasant, Jill agreed that the entire experience taught her a valuable lesson about travel.

“Always check the luggage stickers the airline hands you before walking away from the counter,” Jill told me”

The writer’s mother was finally reunited with her misplaced bags, and American Airlines paid for clothes that allowed her to enjoy the sun and several cocktails in Mexico.