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Luggage issues - seeking clarification

Smiling Sam

I'm curious.

Under which circumstances have people had luggage issues (perhaps all, but if only certain types of circumstances, then perhaps we can minimize potential for problems by avoiding those cases, if possible).

1) Had luggage issues even though my flight was a point-to-point flight, eg. Flew from Chicago to London and then picked up my luggage (or tried to) for a tour starting in London

2) Had issues with my luggage when my flight connected in a domestic or foreign city to another flight but all within the same airline (not counting partner airlines as the same airline)

3) Had issues with my luggage when my flight connected in a domestic or foreign city to another flight but they connected to a partner airline

Just curious if there is any difference (probability in having luggage issues) in the three cases described

Comments

Nancy

Cancelled flights have been our experience…not luggage!

AlanS

We only had a near luggage issue because of cancelled flights on the way to Greece in May. If we hadn't spotted our bags still sitting on the tarmac at CDG after all other bags had been loaded, it might have been a different story. We had no problems with baggage on Turkish Airlines during J&E in March.

AlanS

Anyone see this in today's Washington Post: "New airline refund rules may be coming. Here’s what it would mean for you." I won't put the link because it is a subscription newspaper, but you might be able to find similar reports in other sources. Here is a link to the DOT press release: https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/part-ongoing-airline-consumer-protections-efforts-usdot-announces-new-rulemaking

Smiling Sam

Unless the people that have had luggage problems haven't seen this or have chosen not to comment, then luggage isn't the problem it's been made out to be (IMO).

Cancelled flights seems to be a much larger issue.

The proposed rules, that AlanS provided a link to, seem to provide a reasonable set of rules for the customers that all airlines will have to follow relative to refunds.

AlanS - I didn't notice it, but do you know if the new rules specify a time period in which approved refunds must be distributed?

Claudia Sails

Here's a link to the USAToday piece - no subscription required.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2022/08/03/airline-refund-rules-dot-comments/10227052002/

The question concerns refund for "significant delays" which has been left up to the airlines to define. Here's some of the proposal they want comments on:

"Changes include officially defining "significant" to mean schedule changes of three hours or more for domestic flights, and six hours or more for international flights, either for departures or arrivals. "
Refund eligibility would be extended to include changes to the departure or arrival airport, itineraries that are altered to include more connections, or changes to the kind of airplane assigned to the flight if the new aircraft "causes a significant downgrade in the air travel experience or amenities available onboard. In addition, passengers would become eligible for vouchers that would not be allowed to expire if they are unable to fly due to "pandemic-related reasons," including being sick or government restrictions on travel. "

The article goes on to give where to send comments to.

There's also another piece on their asking for comments about the size of airline seats.

Smiling Sam

Claudia - Thanks for pulling the rule change highlights directly into the forum.

With respect to size of airline seats, assuming that includes leg room, I’d definitely ask for more leg room vs more seat width. 😀

British

For us, it’s cancelations. Also, booked business class, two flights, ended up two economy and one business class instead on our last trip. I guess that would have come into the new rules.

jeffr775

We had luggage problems going to our Tauck, Best of Ireland, Small group in late June. Went Phoenix to Heathrow to Dublin and had about 4 and a half hours (so plenty of time) connecting in Heathrow. Luggage didn't make it to Dublin on arrival. Looked like 400 to 500 bags lined up along our incoming conveyor (and probably the same on the others) that were awaiting ID and transfer to the owners. Filed the report, then headed to our hotel. My suitcase was delivered our second evening in Dublin. My wife's took 5 days. Believe we hit the major conveyor failure, plus labor issues and high passenger volume in Heathrow. Both the hotel concierge and our tour guide tried calling the luggage delivery service several times to get a status update but could never get an answer- just a full voicemail box. Have a claim pending with Tauck's insurer. Also, the hotel concierge in Dublin said they had 16 guests whose luggage hadn't made it (we were the only ones with Tauck who had a problem).

Flights were all pretty close to on time arriving and luggage returning home made it when we did!

Smiling Sam

jeffr775 - Were both legs of your trip to Dublin on British Air?

jeffr775

Sam, Yes. And all went well except the delayed luggage. Heathrow was very crowded but we had time so no stress there. They did have their "Fastlane", or whatever it's called shut down so even though we flew business class didn't have the advantage of that.

MikeHenderson

I haven't had many lost bag issues. One was on our travel to Morocco. Our Tickets were through American Airlines, with an AA flight to JFK, then an American codeshare with Air Moroc to Casablanca. American screwed up the ticket with Air Moroc and we just got it cleared up in time to make the flight out of JFK. Our luggage didn't. It took six days to catch up with us.

Some friends were traveling to Copenhagen from LAX, through Charles De Gaulle. They made the connecting flight but their luggage didn't. It's possible it was their fault. They might have been required to claim their luggage in Paris and then re-check it on their connecting flight - I can't say for sure, but I know they didn't do that. It took ten days for the last bag to get to them.

Smiling Sam

So thus far

1) Jeff's luggage issue seemed to be driven my mechanical issues with the luggage system in Heathrow.

2) Mike's problem seemed to be human error in correctly formulating the ticket between partner airlines

3) Mike's friend problem could have been their own human error for not picking up and re-checking their bags (can't say for sure).

For item 1) it seems like there is nothing that could be done to foresee or prevent it from happening assuming this wasn't a known issue that had been going on for some time. Simply bad luck.

For item 2) perhaps (and I stress perhaps) through asking enough questions at the point where the bags were originally checked you might have found some ticketing issue and got it resolved before the bags disappeared, but that seems unlikely because of course the agent will say they've done everything correctly.

For item 3) if the problem was the issue of not picking up and re-checking then that issue should have been completely preventable.

MikeHenderson

My problem with the ticket for Air Maroc was definitely American's fault. It's clear that they screwed up somewhere and actually cancelled my flight on Air Maroc (which we had paid for). We had a four-hour layover, and it took most of that time for our travel agent, and us, to get American to correct the situation.

Then, on the return, we had tickets from JFK to LAX on equipment with lie-flat seats. They did an equipment change and there were no lie flat seats. A friend traveling with us was bumped to economy. American is not my go-to airline.