Author Topic: Lost luggage  (Read 1544 times)

Offline jye

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Lost luggage
« on: July 21, 2022, 05:47:28 PM »
One bag didn’t show up on my sons AA  TLV to JFK flight this morning. Agent says the bags is still in Tel Aviv. She claimed tracking will show the bag in a few hours. 12 hours later the file number they provided still shows no tracking info. What are the odds that it makes it to me by mid next week when he goes up to his job in camp? Is it reasonable to assume the worst and have him buy replacement clothing now? Thx

Offline Ephraimh

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Re: Lost luggage
« Reply #1 on: July 21, 2022, 07:05:34 PM »
One bag didn’t show up on my sons AA  TLV to JFK flight this morning. Agent says the bags is still in Tel Aviv. She claimed tracking will show the bag in a few hours. 12 hours later the file number they provided still shows no tracking info. What are the odds that it makes it to me by mid next week when he goes up to his job in camp? Is it reasonable to assume the worst and have him buy replacement clothing now? Thx
With the whole lost/delayed baggage fiasco happening right now globally, there’s is a company called Blue Ribbon Bags - www.blueribbonbags.com which basically guarantees $1,000 - $2,000 per lost/delayed bag (if they can’t reunite you with the bag in less than 96 hours after landing) for a small $5 - $10 premium.

It’s a superb service.

Offline jye

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Re: Lost luggage
« Reply #2 on: July 21, 2022, 11:36:12 PM »
It’s insurance that you purchase before the flight takes off…

Offline Ephraimh

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Re: Lost luggage
« Reply #3 on: July 21, 2022, 11:40:13 PM »
It’s insurance that you purchase before the flight takes off…
Right, it’s not applicable to your situation.

Offline jye

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Re: Lost luggage
« Reply #4 on: July 22, 2022, 12:43:57 AM »
Sounds like someone did the math and figured out that less than 1 in 200 bags go missing for 96 hours so a $10 insurance premium is a money maker.

https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-news/airlines-most-likely-to-lose-your-luggage
Seems like it’s around 1 in 250 pieces that are mishandled and presumably only a small amount of those are lost over 96 hours. I wonder if the stats are still in profitable territory this season.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2022, 01:03:27 AM by jye »

Offline DealJew

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Re: Lost luggage
« Reply #5 on: July 22, 2022, 03:59:35 AM »
One bag didn’t show up on my sons AA  TLV to JFK flight this morning. Agent says the bags is still in Tel Aviv. She claimed tracking will show the bag in a few hours. 12 hours later the file number they provided still shows no tracking info. What are the odds that it makes it to me by mid next week when he goes up to his job in camp? Is it reasonable to assume the worst and have him buy replacement clothing now? Thx
Regardless you can purchase essential items and the airline will reimburse you even if the bag does arrive.
PM me for airline compensation help. Your case is not lost!

Offline jye

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Re: Lost luggage
« Reply #6 on: July 24, 2022, 05:40:40 PM »
Apparently it can get worse. The next step American, United, and a bunch of other airlines take after locating your suitcase is to close the case,  handing it off to a company aptly named “wheresmysuitcase” for delivery. They are couriers who apparently subcontract your luggage out to other couriers or drivers who occasionally pick up your luggage if they feel like it. They are like a black hole that swallows your luggage. Completely unresponsive even after the supposed delivery time is long past. Their tracking information is not updated and their email is apparently not monitored. Judging from hundreds of reviews getting your luggage from them is at best often a multi day process and completely hit or miss. There’s no question that AirTags in luggage can be a game changer considering the abysmal state of the airlines tracking capabilities.

(And no, Blueribbonbags would not even have covered it because the luggage officially arrived at the destination airport within 96 hours.)
« Last Edit: July 24, 2022, 06:59:16 PM by jye »

Offline jye

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Re: Lost luggage
« Reply #7 on: July 24, 2022, 09:21:29 PM »
Apparently it can get worse. The next step American, United, and a bunch of other airlines take after locating your suitcase is to close the case,  handing it off to a company aptly named “wheresmysuitcase” for delivery. They are couriers who apparently subcontract your luggage out to other couriers or drivers who occasionally pick up your luggage if they feel like it. They are like a black hole that swallows your luggage. Completely unresponsive even after the supposed delivery time is long past. Their tracking information is not updated and their email is apparently not monitored. Judging from hundreds of reviews getting your luggage from them is at best often a multi day process and completely hit or miss. There’s no question that AirTags in luggage can be a game changer considering the abysmal state of the airlines tracking capabilities.

(And no, Blueribbonbags would not even have covered it because the luggage officially arrived at the destination airport within 96 hours.)

Lo and behold I made contact with the driver. He says he can drop the luggage off between 330 and 4 am. Take it or leave it. 🤷‍♂️


Offline jye

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Re: Lost luggage
« Reply #8 on: July 25, 2022, 09:27:24 AM »
Lo and behold I made contact with the driver. He says he can drop the luggage off between 330 and 4 am. Take it or leave it. 🤷‍♂️
To back up a bit, before getting the call with the 3-4 am delivery estimate, I spent an hour waiting on hold for the third time with AA and after much back and forth the representative agrees to reach out to the courier, Wheresmysuitcase (for less refined folks Wheretheblankismysuitcase might be a more appropriate name) to update me with the delivery status. She tells me I’ll see it in the notes on the couriers website. Sure enough when I now click on the link in my email the courier now has an added note “Contact PX with delivery time”- but the AA representative entered the wrong number- my phone number is off by one digit. I realized there is an option to edit the note and corrected it.

Soon after comes the phone call. The courier actually emails me a picture of Mohsin, the luggage guy who is going to deliver my suitcase who appears to be a foreigner posing outside of some used run down car lot, along with a delivery estimate that continues to say your luggage is (was?) scheduled to be delivered at 8:30 am 7/24- in the future tense! This is not like when the molad in yerushalayim comes out on shabbos and half the shul says די מולד וועט זיין while the other half says די מולד איז געווען. I mean, there isn’t any third world country where 8:30 am still WILL be. Is there? I now figure there’s a good chance that luggage will never be seen.

Now, however, the link starts showing a tracker; Mohsin is apparently hanging out with my luggage in a warehouse in Valley Stream. After a couple of hours I watch apprehensively as Mohsin starts heading in the wrong direction to Bedford- Stuyvesant. Forget my luggage. Will Mohsin make it out of Bed-Stuy at night? Apparently he does, and begins to hang around East Orange and then Newark for a while. Hey, after Bed-Stuy this guy can survive anything. Edison is next on his itinerary after which he takes a spin out to the Trenton area in the wee hours of the morning. At that point I go to sleep while my wife takes over the watch.

To my surprise he ends up actually showing up with a knock on the door just after 2am and tells my wife it’s good we didn’t waive the signature requirement (the tracking website keeps offering you to waive the required signature) because “so many luggage pieces in your area that are dropped off outside the door without a signature have been disappearing lately”. Maybe think about not doing drop offs outside peoples doors in the dead of night and you won’t have “so many luggage pieces disappearing”. I imagine the folks that waive the signature end up without their luggage and without compensation.

Wheresmysuitcase handles pretty much every major airlines lost luggage. Getting bumped is a minor inconvenience relative to chasing down a lost piece of luggage. It’s a shame the DOT rules don’t reflect this and can continue to allow the lost baggage system to operate like some third world operation from Bangladesh.
« Last Edit: July 25, 2022, 11:26:26 AM by jye »

Offline Ephraimh

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Re: Lost luggage
« Reply #9 on: July 25, 2022, 09:45:36 AM »
The courier sends me a picture of Mohsin, the luggage guy who is going to deliver my suitcase who appears to be a foreigner posing outside of some used run down car lot, along with a delivery estimate that continues to say your luggage is scheduled to be delivered at 8:30 am 7/24- in the future tense!. I now figure there’s a good chance that luggage will never be seen. To my surprise he ends up actually showing up with a knock on the door just after 2am and tells my wife it’s good we didn’t waive the signature requirement (the tracking website keeps offering you to waive the required signature) because “so many luggage pieces in your area that are dropped off outside the door without a signature have been disappearing lately”.

Getting bumped is a minor inconvenience relative to chasing down a lost piece of luggage. It’s a shame the DOT rules don’t reflect this and can continue to allow the lost baggage system to operate like some third world operation from purgatory.
Good for you!

(Now, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that BRB does all of this for $5, because you’re gonna get right back at me and say that they don’t 🫤, so cheers!)

Offline Darth1

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Re: Lost luggage
« Reply #10 on: August 16, 2022, 04:42:22 AM »
Is a stroller considered an essential item? My stroller and carseat were lost 1 week ago by airfrance on the way to tlv. They said they found it and sent it to tlv and we were contacted by laufer baggage handlers that they have it but they have yet to deliver it to us. On AirFrances WorldTracer it says they only found my carseat. If I went out and bought a new stroller would I be reimbursed? What if they actually did find the stroller and get it to me eventually would I still be reimbursed for the stroller bc its an essential item? My stroller was a brand new $500 stroller, in Israel they cost even more, do these facts make any difference?