Possibly using RAC again with some caveats!!!!

[lylone]

OP-I saw you mentioned SW. Was this a SW flight "operated" by Airtran?

What does that matter?

 

[DebbieB]

What does that matter?

There seems to be alot of confusion about where you check your luggage in if you booked on SW but the plane flown is AirTran or vice versa. Could have been sent to the wrong area. Their check-in counters at MCO are on opposite sides - SW is on A, AirTran is on B.

 

[Missytara]

There seems to be alot of confusion about where you check your luggage in if you booked on SW but the plane flown is AirTran or vice versa. Could have been sent to the wrong area. Their check-in counters at MCO are on opposite sides - SW is on A, AirTran is on B.

That is an excellent point. Possibly SW is not making the transition well.

I love when people jump to conclusions without having the facts. While anyone can make a mistake, there is most likely a viable explanation and people should try to find out the facts and get real information before posting on a board where many people could change their plans based on that post.

I do not pass along the right info 100 percent of the time, but I try to post as much accurate info as possible and apologize in the same thread if I do not.

 

[keishashadow]

Inconvenient? Sure. But not even close to something that would infuriate me or cause me to never use that service again.

I would (as I have done in the past) give them my home address/phone number so that when it DOES show up, the courier can deliver it to me. It's happened a few times over the years and only once has it taken more than 24hours for my luggage to land at my house.

I would say if this is the first time it has happened to you - you are doing well.

agreed

my 'worst' incident was lost luggage that sat on somebody's porch in Michigan for weeks (I live in PA) after being misdirected. I had given up on ever receiving the bag. The person finally tracked me down via the luggage check tag from Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando (calling the resort who in turn called me with the person's phone number). When I did call the person, turned out she was missing a bag too from flight the same day out of MCO and hoped maybe I had received hers. Mine had no tag on it with my name or info, apparently was lost in transit. Since that time I've always put a card inside the bag with my contact information.

AirTran made it right with many vouchers for everybody on my reservation despite there only being 1 bag involved. Things happen, it's how the provider responds to their mistakes that make all the difference imo.

 

[stargazertechie]

I'm assuming the OP means more then half the people filing a claim for missing bags appear to have used RAC and not more then half the passengers were missing luggage.

People on DIS like to assume DME/RAC is generally without blame. Late bags arriving and missing bags on your return flight must the fault of the airline. Airlines don't want bags 12 hours before your flight. Get to the airport too early and you'll have to wait to check your bag. Check in as early as the OP did and RAC holds the bag at your resort until closer to your flight time. Those bags sometimes wind being held too long and the bag misses the flight.

Thank you for getting what I was trying to say. Apparently I become rather incoherent after being awake for 19 hours and traveling for most of them.



It was a SW itinerary on a SW flight. I can only imagine the headache had it been an AirTran flight.


Once I got home, I contacted BAGS who referred me to ME to put a claim in as well. ME traced the bags and their last scan was from the truck leaving the resort. At that point I filed a missing bag report at both the Beach Club and at Orlando International, as well as the missing bag report that was filed at Midway.

Got a call at 8:30 last night from Southwest. Bags had been located (wouldn't tell me where) and they were en route to Chicago. They were all delivered to my mother this morning, and she is driving our three bags up to Michigan for us. Figured after the fiasco the last thing we needed was to have bags from the same lost bag claim being sent to two different airports.

To answer a few questions:

---It was a SW itinerary on a SW flight.

---According to the folks at BAGS, the tags are scanned upon receipt at the RAC desk, again when loaded into the luggage cage, a 3rd time when loaded into the truck, and then when unloaded at the airport upon receipt by the client's airline. In my case, it appears the last scan was missed, which is why it took them close to 24 hours to find our bags.

---According to SW, the bags are scanned when received (either at Skycap at the airport, at the baggage check in desk, or when offloaded from the remote check-in truck), and then again when loaded onto the plane.


--- If you ever find yourself in this predicament, file a lost bag report with both DME (who then passes it along to BAGS, you cannot file with BAGS directly) as well as with your airline at your arrival airport.

I always put a copy of my travel itinerary inside my suitcase, along with my business card laminated to the inside pocket.

I did learn a few VERY important lessons this trip:

1) My OCD packing skills paid off. As I packed for our outbound trip, I made an itemized packing list with each item in the suitcase (type of item, color, size, which bag) and all I would have needed to add for a lost bag claim would have been purchase date and cost.

2) Put some rather odd identifying "things" on the top of your belongings in the suitcase. The airline will ask you for 2-3 items in your bag in case all tags are lost. I was able to say "A box of sangria, a pair of green vibram five-fingers running shoes, and a bag of latex clown sculpting balloons"

 

[goofy4tink]

So, it would seem that the bags actually left the resort, right? Then, they probably made it to the airport and they were put aside at some point and forgotten. Could you tell where the bags had been by looking at various tags on them? I have to wonder what the crew at MCO did with so many bags on that one flight. That would make the most sense to me. If they got a large number of bags, for that same flight, via BAGS/RAC, from multiple resorts, perhaps they were put aside to be dealt with later when it got closer to flight departure time...and then, forgotten. That would make the most sense to me.

 

[stargazertechie]

So, it would seem that the bags actually left the resort, right? Then, they probably made it to the airport and they were put aside at some point and forgotten. Could you tell where the bags had been by looking at various tags on them? I have to wonder what the crew at MCO did with so many bags on that one flight. That would make the most sense to me. If they got a large number of bags, for that same flight, via BAGS/RAC, from multiple resorts, perhaps they were put aside to be dealt with later when it got closer to flight departure time...and then, forgotten. That would make the most sense to me.

I'm going to have to check the tags when I get my bags back. Unfortunately they most likely won't be in my possession until Thursday at the earliest- all of them were delivered to my mother's house 3 hours away so I've got to go pick them up sometime this week.

 

[Gracie09]

Just want to say I am happy they found your bags.

 

[stargazertechie]

Got our resolution (and our bags) from Southwest! They arrived on my mom's doorstep at 2:45 in the morning (which is a whole other complaint) but they figured out what had happened.

goofy4tink was right on the money. They had stashed all of the RAC bags for our flight on a luggage trolly , and it got left behind when it was time to load the delayed flight

When I called to express my concern that the courier showed up at 2:45 in the morning after promising bag delivery between 8 and 10 pm the night before, the SW CSR was SO apologetic, and as a goodwill gesture she sent us each a southwest gift certificate in the amount of $200.

Still probably won't check bags on my next few flights, but between the AWESOME service from Mears getting a print out of the scans for me to give to southwest, and soutwest going above and beyond the call of duty to right this mistake, well, I'll continue to be a fairly happy southwest customer.

 

[LSchrow]

I was able to say "A box of sangria, a pair of green vibram five-fingers running shoes, and a bag of latex clown sculpting balloons"

 

[Jestocost]

Got our resolution (and our bags) from Southwest! They arrived on my mom's doorstep at 2:45 in the morning (which is a whole other complaint) but they figured out what had happened.

goofy4tink was right on the money. They had stashed all of the RAC bags for our flight on a luggage trolly , and it got left behind when it was time to load the delayed flight

When I called to express my concern that the courier showed up at 2:45 in the morning after promising bag delivery between 8 and 10 pm the night before, the SW CSR was SO apologetic, and as a goodwill gesture she sent us each a southwest gift certificate in the amount of $200.

Still probably won't check bags on my next few flights, but between the AWESOME service from Mears getting a print out of the scans for me to give to southwest, and soutwest going above and beyond the call of duty to right this mistake, well, I'll continue to be a fairly happy southwest customer.

Glad to know it all worked out.

One thing that confused me about your initial post and is reinforced by the information about what actually happened is that, as I always have understood it, you should not be able to check your bags with RAC more than 12 hours before your scheduled flight departure. With an 8:55 p.m. flight, you would have been outside that window if you checked your bags at 7:30 a.m.

As a result, I'm wondering if the RAC desk erred initially when they accepted your bags too early and if that may have contributed to the problem.

There have been some claims that the 12-hour limit is no longer enforced but nothing to confirm that has ever been presented. I am pretty sure that you still can't use RAC the day before your flight, so it's not an option for anyone with a flight leaving MCO before 8:30 a.m. or thereabouts.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

Glad to know it all worked out.

One thing that confused me about your initial post and is reinforced by the information about what actually happened is that, as I always have understood it, you should not be able to check your bags with RAC more than 12 hours before your scheduled flight departure. With an 8:55 p.m. flight, you would have been outside that window if you checked your bags at 7:30 a.m.

As a result, I'm wondering if the RAC desk erred initially when they accepted your bags too early and if that may have contributed to the problem.

There have been some claims that the 12-hour limit is no longer enforced but nothing to confirm that has ever been presented. I am pretty sure that you still can't use RAC the day before your flight, so it's not an option for anyone with a flight leaving MCO before 8:30 a.m. or thereabouts.

At one time, you could only use RAC 3 to 12 hours before your scheduled departure, but now it just has to be more than 3 hours before departure on the same day.

Here's the current, official write-up from Disney, which no longer includes the 12-hour restriction: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/planning-guides/in-depth-advice/airport-service/

You can still find unofficial websites with the old 12-hour restriction, but that only means those websites are not up-to-date.

 

[stargazertechie]

Glad to know it all worked out.

One thing that confused me about your initial post and is reinforced by the information about what actually happened is that, as I always have understood it, you should not be able to check your bags with RAC more than 12 hours before your scheduled flight departure. With an 8:55 p.m. flight, you would have been outside that window if you checked your bags at 7:30 a.m.

At one time, you could only use RAC 3 to 12 hours before your scheduled departure, but now it just has to be more than 3 hours before departure on the same day.

Here's the current, official write-up from Disney, which no longer includes the 12-hour restriction: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/planning-guides/in-depth-advice/airport-service/

I'm glad I'm not losing my mind. I had also thought there was a 12 hour restriction as well- but I couldn't find anything about it.