Iberia airline had lost my luggage back in June 2007, right before a 14 day cruise. I went through hell and back with the morons over at Iberia who have one of the worst customer service reps in the world, IMO. Anyway, after about 70 phone calls (I'm not kidding) to Madrid over a period of 5 months, I finally for a check for the lost baggage. All $1600 that they owed me... so I can finally let go of all the anger and resentment now...

I assume Iberia isn't your favorite airline? It pays to not give up. They obviously think you will which is why they run you through hoops.

Actually the OP should be happy with Iberia. According to the Warsaw Convention, the airlines can cap the payments for lost luggage to:

<i>The Warsaw Convention sets airline liability at $20 per kilo — or $9.07 per pound — with a maximum of $640 per suitcase.</i>

Yes, I think the key to getting some money out of these airlines that have wronged you is to keep at it. They lost 50 lbs of my clothing and personal items that I had to basically repurchase so I really needed them to pay up.
Looking back, they really gave me the runabout. Most of the 800 numbers on the Iberia site don't have anybody at the other end. If you call any of the Iberia offices at the US airports, they won't help you one bit (I just wanted them to give me the right number or point me to the right direction in any way possible). One lady asked me to send a copy of all my documents to Miami. I sent a certified letter and it came right back saying I sent it to the wrong place, it needs to go to Madrid.
The people in Madrid asked me for a set of documents that I sent them promptly. They had asked me to wait for 2 months for the check to come in so I waited. When I called towards the end of the two months, they said that they had misplaced my documents, they just had the cover letter. Now the cover letter had my address, email address, phone numbers, etc. I asked them why didnt they just call me to let me know that they had lost my documents. Why was I waiting for 2 months? They said that it is not their policy to call so they were just waiting for me to call at the end of the 2 months to let me know that I need to resend the documents... can you imagine my frustration??
I was so shocked to see the $1600. I assumed that I will not see a penny, or at the most around $300 or so to shut me up.

OP... you are lucky to get some compesation.AirFrance is the most worst airlines in my opinion for the customer service as the airlines refused to compensate to my missed bagage. On my hunting around for nearly a week with all agencies, they returned my baggae after two weeks. .
Till then the airlines was cool and didn't bother to give me any information on mising baggage.Had i kept quiet thinkin that baggage would be delivered by AirFrance, perhapps still i wouldn't have got it
The staff at CDG airport doesn't reveal the customer's rights in such a situation.Never to fly AirFrance again in my life.

Definitely lucky.

Here in the states, all four members of my family had their luggage lost by US Airways on flight from RSW-PIT. Thankfully, it was the end of our vacation, but overall, we only recieved $200 after appx. 40 phone calls, and that was a month later!!