Ok - well I have beaten myself up about this already. But if my sad experience can help someone else I'll put up with looking stupid.

Last weekend I went to Toronto. I was flying UA home from Toronto to Chicago. As I was boarding the plane the gate agent confiscated my carry on bag. She told me that there was "no room" on the plane for my carry on. Funny, there was plenty of room the day before when I flew to Toronto. She slapped a green sticker on it. She told me there would be no charge for checking the luggage and (I thought) to pick it up at O'Hare baggage claim.

When I went to baggage claim there was no bag. I waited 30 minutes then went to UA lost luggage. I was told that I should have picked up my bag AT THE PLANE. The agent in lost luggage called the gate. She told me that my bag was there. She said I could wait for someone to bring it to me or they would send it. I waited 30 minutes then asked if they would send it.

It has been 5 days now with no sign of my bag. I called the number on the lost luggage claim form. The woman there told me that she did not know where my bag was. She directed me to print out the lost luggage form from their website, completed it & fax it plus supporting documents to them. I just did that this morning. After I added up everything in my carry on bag I was surprised at the monetary amout. To replace everything in the bag would cost just over $1,000. I know UA will never reimburse me that much. Besides I would prefer to have my bag & things back rather than have to go through the hassle of replacing everything.

Here is what I think is really going on. Now that UA has a $25/bag fee people forgo the suitcase in favor of a small carry on bag. No luggage - no ballast for the plane. So they take the carry ons to use as ballast.

I guess the only thing I can do is keep calling them.

Anyone else have any advice?

So the moral of the story is - when the airline forcefully takes your carry on bag away from you be sure you know where to retrieve it.

I would send in the claim form and give the tracing system a chance to work. We had two (checked) bags lost earlier this year--originally misdirected by one of United's partners, but as the last carrier on our itinerary, United was responsible for locating them. I pretty much gave up hope after a couple weeks, so I was sure surprised when they showed up on day 24. Apparently, they took an extended vacation in Istanbul.

From my experience, the UA baggage tracking site is worthless (it was showing six lost bags at one point!), and the outsourced baggage line is almost as bad. If by any chance you're a 1K, there is a dedicated, Chicago-based lost bag desk that you can reach through reservations.

FWIW, it appears that there's a mix of regional jets and mainline flights on that route. When checking carryons planeside on the RJs, I've always picked them up at the the plane after. When having to check on a mainline flight, they go to baggage claim. Green tags would suggest it was an RJ.

Keep calling, and good luck!

I assume she gave you the detachable receipt/claim check from the bag when she took it?

I routinely gate check my carry on when I fly smaller UA planes - then wait for them to unload the bags into the jetway for collection before leaving the area.

What a pain for you. I hope you get it all sorted out.

Another thought...did your bag have any ID on it? I'll bet it's sitting in the airport with it's little green tag, but no way to match it to you, as the green tags are just handed out at the gate. Nothing in any system to match the luggage to a specific person. Can you go back to the airport and try to sort it out in person(and take your tag if they gave you one)? Maybe they need you to personally identify it, as gate checked bags don't have the same tagging system as checked bags.

Good luck.

Thank you both so very much. I will do as you both recommend.

I knew I could depend on you Fodorites!

Another story of a bag that was returned, in my case, about a month later. Somehow TWA had gotten a hold of my UA bag. It had my name/address on it, so I got a postcard from TWA. I called them and asked them to give it to UA, which they did, and I had the bag in my hands about 24 hours later. (this was years ago, when you could lock you bag; it was still locked when it arrived)

Don't give up hope.

It would maybe help if you could get the direct phone number to the United baggage office at Chicago airport and talk to them. I would start by calling the general airport number and see if they can give you the number.
The very best is if you could go there in person. I bet you would find your bag.

not sure what you mean by "no luggage, no ballast for the plane"

Can you elaborate?

I think you still have a good chance to get the bag back. Since it was actually SEEN at your arrival airport. You know it's not lost in transit or anything, but AT that airport *somewhere*.

All you got to do now is find it (sorry, bad joke). I would both go to the airport in person if you can AND file the lost baggage claim paperwork as well.

Here you go, J62

Passangers asked to act as Ballast for Thomas Cook flight.

http://tinyurl.com/mha6hz


And this from an AOL article "The 5 Things Airlines Don't Want You to Know":

But ever since the new checked bag fees were introduced on many airlines, with fewer passengers checking bags as a result, there's been an upturn in the need to add ballast before takeoff, particularly on smaller commuter flights that are more sensitive to weight issues.

"The weight balance of the aircraft is set up to where they're usually expecting a certain amount of bags to balance out the plane," explains the captain for a major U.S. airline. "So if we have 50 passengers on board, we expect 50 bags and that offsets the weight of the passengers and balances out the aircraft to give it the right center of gravity for take off.

"But what happens now, with charging so much for bags, is that people carry on so there's a weight balance problem. Because of that we end up carrying sometimes 500 or 600 pounds of sand bags to even us out."

http://tinyurl.com/24rylb4


Lynn & Suze - Thank you so much. You are right, I think I will have the best result by going to the airport.

I should mention that the plane to & from Toronto was very small. I don't remember the model number but it was a 2 and 2 with about 30 rows.

I looked on-line for an article I read a while back. However, I was unable to find it. It said that United was reporting record profits & the baggage fees were the reason. However there was an unintended consequence to this. People were no longer checking luggage. This left flight crews scrambling for ballast. The article went on to describe one flight that was delayed until the flight crew was able to scrounge up a bunch of old magazines to use as ballast.

Why did they not let you stow the carryon under your seat? Even if the overheads are full, you can stow a bag under your seat. No one could have a bag under YOUR seat, or I should say at your feet under the seat in front of you. Am I missing something?

1965, the bag may have been too big to fit under the seat. Often bags will fit in the bins above, but only something the size of a school backpack or messenger bag will fit under the seat. The area under the seat in front tends to be smaller than the bins above, and in a little puddle jumper that's tiny.

On the flight from Chicago to Toronto my carry on was in the overhead. So it DID fit.

I TOLD you - they needed the carry ons for ballast!

Anyway, I did what Suze & Lynn suggested. I went to O'Hare this morning & talked with the United employees in lost luggage. From what the told me, my suitcase hung around for a few days. Then it was sent to the hub on its way to headquarters. So Christine was able to call the hub. She confirmed that my bag was there. She was able to have them send my bag back to O'Hare. I got the call just before leaving for work. My bag will be home in the am!

I learned another lesson - make sure there is ID on my carry on!

Oh good! I was hoping this was a positive report when I saw the thread again.