Thingorjus needs help w/lost luggage
 

Thingorjus' plane (USAIR 618 Las Vegas to Philly) was diverted to Pittsburg because of the blizzard on Saturday. USAIR never took the baggage off of the plane when it landed in Pittsburg. Hence, I have lost luggage. In all my world travels, I have never had a lost bag. I filed a claim at Philly Airport, and filled out a form at USAIR.COM/Baggage.

What are my rights regarding this matter?? What happens if USAIR can't find my bag?? Don't they have to compensate me??

Please help me if you have gone through this before.

Cheers,
John G.

Who did this happen to, you or to John G? I am sorry to hear about whoever lost the luggage. What a pain! It has happened to me a few times. Eventually it will ve returned. See if you can get any extra miles from it.

You were returning home, right? Regard that as a good thing. In my travels, I can recall airlines losing my bags five times. But in every case they found them within two days -- usually within 24 hours and delivered them to me. Relax. I think with all the travel chaos this weekend, you were lucky YOU could get where you were going -- never mind the bag for now.

Yes, you are entitled to be compensated if they don't find it, but I'll bet they will.

John, statistically if you do not receive your bags within 72 hours after your return home, it doesn't look good for them ever getting to you. The good news is that you will be eligible for reimbursement, but the bad news is that the airline will want an itemized list of everything in your bag, and a corresponding dollar value for each item. I think now would be a good time to claim that you had packed a $300 cashmere pashmina as a present for Linda! (Barring that, perhaps some nice Thomas Pink shirts for Keith!)

Good luck, sweetie!

BC

How funny, Bookchick. Thomas Pink was having a sale at their store at the Forum at Caesar's. Unfortunately, I didn't buy any shirts. I did buy fabulous Gucci sunglasses, but I wore them on the plane. (I didn't want anyone to ask me for my autograph!)

The thing that made me mad was that I always bring one carry-on and one suitcase that I check. This time, I did not bring a carry-on because I was only in Vegas for 3 days. I put the pants to my suit in the checked luggage, wore the jacket on the plane with jeans. Now, I am kicking myself because what good is a suit without the pants???? That is the only thing that I am angry about.

I thought I had read somewhere that in the US, a carrier (by law) has to pay a flat rate of $1,200 for every piece of lost luggage. In Europe, you are paid by the weight of your lost luggage.

Chevrefeuilee, I am Thingorjus. All the regs on Fodors know me.

There are rather severe limitations on their liability (not for me, but maybe some other people). The terms should be on their web site. I thought it was around $1200.

Oh poor darlin!
How annoying ! I temporarily lost a piece of luggage a while back, it finally made its way home with all my clothing intact ( don't think any strangers tried anything on ) ... it was delivered to my door by the airlines.
Same thing happened to my son a year or so ago- he accidentally switched bags with someone on the plane, she went to Boston with his things, he was in NYC. The airline switched again, delivered it to our door.
I do hope the same thing happens to you, with the snow and the delays, there might be a longer wait to find it so keep your hopes up!
Scarlett ((F))

oh, no!!

Odds are you will get it back.
Remember all the luggage US Air misplaced over Xmas or New Year's?


Airlines have a limited liability on the value of the bag and its contents, that limit was raised recently I think but it still may not equal your losses.
You would then be entitled to file a claim with your home-owners/renters insurance policy for the difference, assuming that you are covered for off-premises losses.
You may not need itemized receipts, although if need be you can comb through your charge receipts for the past year or two or three and circle any clothing purchases you made that surely were in that suitcase. Your credit card company can provide duplicate statements if you need them.

That is a pain.

However, as your wore the suit jacket with jeans, it would appear it is useful as a standalone piece.

Check out this link from the US Airways website - go to section XI and click on Baggage Claim Limits and Procedures:

http://www.usairways.com/customers/t...rms/terms.htm#

I've been reading small type all day so I didn't read this carefully, but it says something about maximum liability of $2800 for travel between US points.

Good luck. I'm sure it will show up. The last time we had lost luggage, it showed up at 3am, which was annoying in itself.

be sure to turn in your claim list by the 72 hours, this way you will be reimbursed immediately, and if you are lucky like i was.... your bag still turns up later!
i went directly to the office with the list and they wrote out a check as i stood there.

bag turned up days later.

i was also able to get the first two days a small list of necessary clothes for kids and myself turning in the receipts.

Too bad about the inconvenience, ThinG. It happened to me once and my suitcase was delivered within 24 hours to my office. The instances of your luggage not showing up at are indeed quite rare.

My poor baby, Hopefully you will have your luggage returned. For now, think how glad Jackie O is to have you home.!

ouch! I feel your pain. I've had this happen twice - both Air France, both times returning from Paris. what sucked even worse then is that I HAD emptied out the city, in my luggage. They did return it, but destroyed one bag and broke some items inside.

They will find your bag, it will just take a while. Pretty soon USAirways will be no longer, too (sad to say). Did you raise a stink already? You might be able to get a FF ticket (which you should use next weekend if you can).

Thankfully, Flygirl, I live in the Philly suburbs. I would definitely NOT stay in downtown Philly next weekend. If the Eagles lose, cars will be overturned, businesses set on fire, people killed and maimed for life. If the Eagles win, cars will be overturned, businesses set on fire, people killed and maimed for life.

As for replacement items I did not have whilst in Pittsburg: I was at some motel in the middle of nowhere (a small town 5 miles from Pittsburg Airport). It wasn't like I was staying across the street from the King of Prussia Mall where I could have zipped into Bloomingdale's for some new clothes. I had to live in the same clothes for 2 days. No toothbrush, no deodorant, no razor. Therefore, I can't claim any items needed because of trip interuption.

The horrible thing about this whole ordeal was that I booked my ticket through United, the flight was operated by USAIR. I didn't realize this until I confirmed my flight. I HATE USAIR, having problems every time I have flown with them. I have some leverage with United, as I have well over 100,000FF miles with them.

PittsburgH...we Steel City people are fussy about that!

I rather like mkingdom's response that your suit jacket is a stand alone piece.
THe airlines have lost my, my husbands' and daughters luggage NUMEROUS times. Ususally recieve the next day, but I think the blizzard gives good reason to allow a few extra days for retieval.

Good Luck to you, and thank god the glasses were on your head!

I'm reminded of the time a local high school choral group here went to France for a week. Air France lost ALL their luggage, don't ask me how. On the third day, Air France issued all of them something like a $500 allowance. They all bought clothes in Paris. On the last day before they flew home, all their luggage appeared. The kids couldn't have been happier -- Parisian wardrobes for free. But what did most of them buy with their money? American jeans and t-shirts.

Oh, poor baby. I've heard of people losing their shirt in Las Vegas but to lose pants on their way home takes some unusual circumstances.

I hope your jacket with jeans is not considered "banding"... and I hope you get your bag back, too!

First of all, ThinGorjus, I love your comments about the outcome of the game... as an ex-Philadelphian, I can truly appreciate!

My parents came to Vegas to visit me over Christmas, flying USAir Philly to Las Vegas, and were part of the huge luggage mix-up. Interestingly, they booked through United and did not know they were flying USAir until the arrived at the airport. I had never heard of this happening, but you mentioned the same thing happened to you...

I can reassure you that we had their luggage within 48 hours, but not before three separate trips back to the airport. A word of advice: if you can swing the trip to the airport, you might get your luggage back faster than if you ask them to deliver. We filled out claims, and I personally asked a USAir employee to call me when the luggage arrived (all of which he recorded on a computer, along with two phone numbers for me)... they never called, and on our third trip back to the airport, we found the luggage ourselves.

Our opinion was that, with USAir on it's way out, they don't really care what complaints anyone logs. We are in the process of complaining to United instead, for booking them on a different (less capable, apparently) airline.

Good luck, and I feel your pain.

Our luggage was lost on Varig Airlines enroute from Ouro Preto, Brazil to Iguazu Falls. They told us that it would most likely show up in 24 hours but it took four long days. When we finally got it, the luggage had an Air Canada tag on it. Go figure. The Varig people who were trying to locate the luggage felt so bad for us that they tried to upgrade us to first class for our trip home to the states. Unfortunately, it was already sold out. So close, yet so far.......

I would search Philly Airport myself, but I don't know if my bag is even in Philly. I don't know if the plane I was on from Vegas ever went to Philly after Pittsburgh. It certainly wasn't the same plane I flew from Pittsburgh to Philly on. I know the flight crew was from Charlotte, NC. For all I know, my luggage could be in Charlotte.

If you saw all the luggage that was on the floor at baggage claim, you would realize it would have been looking for a needle in a haystack (I did search for 30 minutes). My bag was a black roller--which is what 80% of what most people use. I think I am going to buy myself a canary-yellow & purple suitcase. :)

Oh no! What a pain - I do hope your suitcase turns up soon. We had one go missing last year at Christmas - we came home, but the bag was sent on its own holiday to the other end of the country. Despite Air Canada's tagging everything with barcodes, they still couldn't trace it as an individual piece, because they went into bankruptcy protection and couldn't afford to install the machinery that reads the bar codes! (or so they claimed). It turned up 3 days later, with everything intact - even the 3 bottles of Scotch my husband got for Christmas.
I think the chances of a bag going missing forever are slim - at least I hope so for your sake.

Travelnut :) about the banding. Funny!

John, I use a black roll-on but stick on glow in the dark stars that I buy at our local craft shop. I stick them on all four sides and plus tie a ribbon usually rainbow, on the handles.

I hope that you will learn your lesson, thingorgus, as I did. Carry on Carry on Carry on! Never will I check my luggage again.

Don't lose heart yet John!
Our luggage (BOTH suitcases) were lost on our return flight from our honeymoon last June.
I was DEVASTATED... we had used a lot of our wedding gift money to buy some beautiful glass pieces in Venice for our new home.
We didn't hear anything for 4 days, depsite calling in several times a day. Then lo and behold, on the 5th day we heard that our luggage had been found and was being delivered.
There was bright blue chewing gum all over one suitcase (another wedding gift - a Samsonite collection) and the front pocket on the other suitcase was ripped in several places.
All of our belongings were fine, however Continental refused to do anything about our luggage claiming it was normal wear and tear.
In any case, the suitcases are still useable, just not as pretty as before. We have all our of souvineers and belongings. And we try like anything to avoid CDG airport!!! ;-)

My luggage arrived but with a broken lock on my suitcase.

"Bungled Baggage at Phila. Int'l Airport" tonight on Action News at 11:00pm.

Where's action news, Greenhouse?

I've had luggage lost twice on the return route in a zillion trips. It always was delivered to my door within 24 hours. With USAir, I wouldn't expect such service, but I would expect to get the stuff back - eventually.
The worst was going to a trade show in Florence eons ago and having my luggage not show up and not having packed a spare set of clothes (as I now do) in my carry-on. I never did retrieve that luggage, and Alitalia only gave me $500. I think I spent about $10 for a toothbrush and went to the flea market to buy some decent clothes to wear to the trade show. That was one amazing trip - on the way home, fog caused all planes out of Firenze to be canceled and we had to take a bus to Pisa, fly to Rome, fly to London, fly to New York, then fly to DC. I was so out of it when I returned home I didn't recognize my own kids at the airport.

If you love your luggage,
set it free(ly upon the baggage check).
If it comes back to you, it's yours (at least what TSA, customs and Fred down in the luggage dept hasn't pilfered and ransacked)
If it doesn't, it was never yours (so says US Air)

Hang in there John. So far, ours has shown up anywhere from a few hours to a few days later.

Thanks for the replies. So far, no word on my luggage.

Bummer, I was looking for your posting good news. I hope it comes today!((F))

Keep the faith, John. On our last trip from Paris, AF lost both our bags for about four days. One finally showed up and we were told by AF that the other was still in Paris, only to be called by our local airport minutes later that the bag had arrived here. Go figure.

This is the reason that I always hand carry anything of value to me, including those special souvenirs and photos from the trip.

Keep us updated, John.

I'll bet it's the weather causing the delay. HOPEfully in a few days your pants will be rejoined with your jacket :)

John G.
USAir lost our luggage last May on the way from STl to Albany. We were to attend a wedding the next day. My husband's suit was in the luggage with his dress shoes, my son, who has a small part in the wedding, has his dress shoes and suit (without pants) in the luggage and I have my bag and shoes there too. I always have a carry-on and with me was my outfit that I was going to wear for the wedding, my son's shirt, tie and pants and my husband's shirt and tie. The wedding was in one of the quaint inns in Vermont, so Albany was not even our final destination. We still didn't get the luggage on the morning of the wedding so we have to buy clothes and shoes. Luggage arrived late evening. USAir said to send in receipts of expenses incurred to buy clothes and shoes. Got a check from USAir about 3 weeks later.

My luggage was returned to me last night at midnight by a car service. Now, to the chagrin of mkingdom, I won't have to wear my suit jacket as a "stand-alone piece." :)

Glad you got everything back in tact, John. Thanks for the update.

((F)) ((F)) ((F)) ((F)) ((F)) ((F)) ((F)