SWA lost my luggage and then found it

[chowboys]

I flew from Baltimore yesterday, landed in Buffalo at 2:30 pm, when I went to pick up my luggage, there was no luggage. There were 5 others who were missing our luggage.

We live in Toronto Canada and they told us that they will deliver it to us as soon as they find it.

They delivered it at 11:00 pm last night. I was amazed at how quickly they got it to me.

Please let me know if this has happened to you.

 

[safetymom]

They owe you nothing. What do you think they owe you? You had the right to ask for supplies if you needed them at the airport. Since your luggage was returned to you the same day I am sure that is the end of the story. It probably wasn't lost but delayed and put on another flight.

 

[Mark P.]

Sorry about your problem...Same thing happened to us a while back.

I called the cust. service # (214)792-4223. It's a toll charge call to Texas, but you may be able to call the regular 800 # (800)435-9792, and have them transfer you.

Anyways, they gave us a $50 gift certificate. The catch was that to redeem it, we had to show proof of round trip flight within a year.

After our next flight some months later, I mailed our itinerary and after around 7 weeks, the $50 credit appeard onto our credit card.

Good Luck,
Mark

 

[Mark P.]

They owe you nothing. What do you think they owe you? You had the right to ask for supplies if you needed them at the airport. Since your luggage was returned to you the same day I am sure that is the end of the story. It probably wasn't lost but delayed and put on another flight.

I should have said this in my first reply, as I think safetymom is right.

I too don't think we were "owed" anything. But in our case, we live almost 2 hours from the airport and we were last on the luggage delivery list. It was 2 days until we had our luggage. Life went on, and it really wasn't a huge deal for us. (We carry on the real important things like meds., etc.)

We try to take things in stride, and I certainly didn't call SW with guns blazing, rather just asked if it were possible for something to be done, etc...I would have been okay with nothing. Unfortunately, these things sometimes happen when traveling.

We've flown SW twice since our luggage glitch, and have two more trips lined up.

-Mark

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

No, the airline doesn't owe you anything, especially since your luggage was lost on your return home, so you had what you needed there. That doesn't mean that you cannot request some type of compensation.

After my husband's bag was lost on a trip from Boston to Brussels for TWO weeks by American Airlines/British Air (it apparently took an unaccompanied tour of Germany and then returned back to Boston, never reaching him on his trip), I never do any long trips without getting lost luggage insurance.

He did receive over $600 from British Air for the clothes, toiletries, suitcase, etc. he had to buy due to their snafu.

 

[Lewisc]

and is no longer asking if compensation is owed.

 

[ducklite]

I agree, you were going home, and anything that critical that you needed it right away when you got home should have been hand carried.

The airline owes you nothing. It happens. It's not a big deal. Had you been forced to return to teh airport to claim your bag, then perhaps they would have. But it was delivered to your door the next morning. Whatever.

Anne

 

[safetymom]

Chowboys, is there a reason you edited your original post? We were trying to be helpful and it looks like none of us answered your question. Just curious.

 

[C.Ann]

Chowboys, is there a reason you edited your original post? We were trying to be helpful and it looks like none of us answered your question. Just curious.

---------------------------

Glad you posted this.. I thought I was losing my mind reading these replies - thinking to myself, "The OP didn't say anything about wanting compensation but instead seemed rather impressed at the speed in which his/her luggage was delivered to their home"...

Phew! I really thought I was "losing it"..

 

[DVC-Don]

Both American and Southwest misplaced our luggage. Both times it was delivered to our apartment/house within a few hours. Not sure what happened with American, but with Southwest we had a last minute gate change at Baltimore and it looks like some luggage did not make the change fast enough. It came in on the next plane from Baltimore and Southwest had it delivered to us, 30 miles from the airport shortly after. This is in 25+ years of flying.

 

[sanjoe]

My husband's luggage arrived at 2am once from an American Airlines flight I think. All I felt that we were owed at that time was some rest. Couldn't go back to sleep after the doorbell rang at 2am! Glad that didn't happen again.

 

[goofy4wdw59]

Let me start off by saying that we have flown Southwest since our missing luggage incident and chalk it up to one of those flukey situations.

In Nov 2003, we flew to Orlando on Southwest. (Thankfully, we flew in the day before our cruise and had some extra time!). We went to the baggage claim area and picked up our luggage...and then waited and waited for one last piece. Finally, the area was empty with 2 or 3 unclaimed pieces of luggage--not ours. A nice Southwest employee came out to move the unclaimed pieces and told us we'd need to fill out a missing luggage claim/report. We gave a description and info where we'd be staying/Cocoa Beach.
By chance , we noticed that one of the unclaimed bags was a similar floral print to our missing one--not the same color...this one was beige...ours was a darker green, and, our name/address tag attached. The Southwest employee suggested that someone grabbed our bag by mistake and would probably return our bag when they came back for their own. I hoped that would happen! I was worried we may not get the bag before leaving in the morning for our cruise.
She also said that if we left the airport, we'd have to pay the courier? fee to have the bag delivered to our Cocoa Beach hotel. I asked if the person who took our bag should have to pay this and she said, unfortunately, no, they weren't obligated to but she would ask them to consider our situation, etc.
We hung around the airport for a while, hoping someone would return with our bag. With 3 young kids, we needed to get to our hotel and left for Cocoa Beach. Sure enough, after arriving, we found out our luggage had been returned to the airport--Hooray! The person who took our luggage left with their own and that was it. (I hope they never lose their luggage)
DH drove back to the airport to get our bag.
Even though we were annoyed at the inconvenience, I was thankful to have our stuff back in time for our cruise.
I now have big, ugly ribbons tied on all our pieces of luggage, LOL