You can see in my picture of the receiver for the strap above the indentations that the strap needs to clear to clip into the receiver. That's why I needed to trim away a bit. As Andrew pointed out, I probably could have fought with it, but I don't think that's what MB had in mind. The receiver is spring metal, so the strap mounting "barbell" clips in place once the leather clears the opening. It remains in place even if the two pieces are laying unattached. Again, by design, if it fell out that would be frustrating trying to strap in your luggage. However, the straps should be easily installed and uninstalled as desired by the user, and mine are now. All that said, the straps are VERY nicely made and fill a want of Pagoda owners. Unscrewing and sliding out the barbell makes the modification easy.
