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!

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)