Yup this. I'm not a herd person but I love boarding first so I can tuck my bag away. It means the worry of that is gone.

And I actually like sitting in my window seat a lot more than at the gate.

Pretty funny use of the word "stole" in this context. The space being above a particular doesn't make it that seat's space any more than the public parking space on the street in front of your house makes it yours. And I've been on probably 8 or 10 flights this year and every time they said carry-ons checked at the gate are returned planeside upon arrival; not once have they been sent to baggage claim.

>The reason becomes apparent when you take a carry on bag

your unreason will become apparent when you check that bag and stroll completely unencumbered through the vast distances twixt curb and plane (x2 departure and arrival)

baggage claim really doesn't take that long, and you can come up with something zen to do for 5 or 10 minutes, make a phone call or two, talk to family or friends. Life is better when you stop inconveniencing yourself and creating a rat race when there isn't one. Let everyone around you fight over the overheads.

I agreed until I lost thousands of dollars of shit in a checked bag TWICE in one lifetime

The crazy thing is, the chance of someone dying is about the same as the chances of you losing your checked bags.

> baggage claim really doesn't take that long

Sure. Just recently picked up my partner from SFO on a late night arrival. It tooke THREE HOURS for the bags to start arriving on the belt. Who knows why. Zero information given to the hundreds of angry people standing there. A very miserable time.

Yes, that's not typical, but it happens. If you carry your bags, it can't possibly ever happen.

Actually the opposite is true. When you gate-check your bags, they are handled carefully and go directly into the plane. Sometimes even into a corner of the passenger area. Parents routinely gate-check strollers, and it’s rare to see one get lost.

Also, gate-checked luggage is given to you at the gate when you land. So no baggage claim.

> When you gate-check your bags, they are handled carefully

Spend some time at the window seats at the gate looking at earlier flights and how gate-checked luggage is handled.

It gets thrown down this chute that drops hard some 20ft to the ground. It also gets very carelessly thrown in there, so a bunch of the bags miss the chute and just drop straight down to the concrete. If you had anything other than clothes in there, ouch! You'll get back a back full of destroyed fragments.