Compensation for immediate expenses due to delayed baggage (replacement purchases)

The irony is that I had bought an android version of air tag a week prior to leaving, but then forgotten all about it

+1 for Airtag. I wouldn’t leave home without it!

Thanks to everyone who responded.

A few clarifications / questions:

  1. Some of you now think that I am not eligible for compensation for immediate expenses due to delayed baggage (replacement purchases), I don’t understand why Swiss Customer Service keeps mentioning this compensation to me, even though I never mentioned it. There was a mistake in my original post: Swiss is the one who kept mentioning it.

  2. 1 Do you think I should fill out the form regarding the contents of the baggage? another weird thing about their website is I don’t receive any notification in my email, I had to connect to the website to see ""Further action is required regarding your delayed baggage.

https://mybag.aero/baggage/#/pax/swi…yed/manage-bag

I don’t understand why it’s needed as I don’t think there are any other suitcases with my niche Canadian brand that match that color and model.

2.2 If it’s just to identify my suitcase, because the above information is still not enough for them, I have a few special brand of instant noodles bought from Asia, this should be unique criteria, do you think it’s enough to provide this information?

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No, I didn’t put an address label on the luggage because I didn’t expect this shit from Swiss even for business class (1st leg).

I believe there is a disgustingly high level of lost luggage at Zurich airport right now. It’s nothing about Swiss the airline. It is the baggage handlers - Swissport - who have a serious problem.

OUr visitor’s bag was lost after a quick flight from Rome to Zurich. The airline kept saying that the bag was in Rome, even though the airtag clearly showed it on the tarmac at Zurich airport.

14 days later…still no bag, even though it was still clearly at the airport.

We came through from Australia 10 days ago - our bags made it through…but there were whole plane loads of bags sitting next to the ‘lost luggage’ counter with two staff who clearly were not tasked with actually moving the bags on in any hurry at all. one guy seemed to be manually looking for a single bag through no less than 200 bags…and he was not at all in a hurry to find it, judging by the pace of his work.

Anyone looking for a job ? Here’s the link to swissport’s job list for Zurich airport…

https://jobs.swissport.com/search/?c…DD_department=

Some colleagues at Frankfurt had something similar. Their bags were not on the carousel, but one of them had an airtag, which indicated they were less than 20m away. They were on an trolley that hadn't been unloaded onto the carousel.

This sounds interesting, but how does it actually work in practise?

Luckily in all the travelling I've done, I've only had a bag go missing 1 time on a trip from flying with BA LAX to Heathrow, a 3 hours layover, then Heathrow to Inverness. The 1st flight was late into LAX, it's turnaround did not pull back any time so was +2 hours late leaving LAX, so I missed the connection to Inverness. BA offered me accom' at Heathrow, a meal, and a seat on the red eye to Inverness the following morning, or, a flight to Aberdeen and a car transfer to Inverness, but that flight left in 40 mins. So a quick descision, and I took that option, and headed sharpish to the gate, never gave my bag a thought, just focusing on getting home.

I made the flight, my bag didn't, but I was reunited with it the following day, but it was a worry, as I didn't know where my bag was, LAX, Heathrow, Aberdeen or Inverness. How would an airtag have helped locate my bag, if it maybe wasn't even in the same country?

- I read they only have a +20m readius,

- Have to be on the same network,

2 years ago LH went on strike and we were rerouted with AF through CDG. That was delayed so we just made it and knew the bags wouldn ́t.

In my case I could see the bags were still in CDG and could follow them when they were flown to BER the next day. It then took a couple of days to finally get them back (but then that was that summer where they had piles of lost luggage).

All in all, your airtags needs someone with an iPhone nearby to be able to show you where they are. Which at an airport works well as there are sufficient people handling luggage there.

So basically having an airtag in your bag, it will piggy back a signal from someone elses iphone, and allow you to locate it with the Find my iPhone app on my iPhone?

Exactly that.

WOW really that simple, sounds like a no brainer then.... many thanks

Does anyone have any comments with my latest post? Thank you very much!

OP, I don’t really understand why you are so reluctant to follow the process?

They told you to buy the essentials, you didn’t.

They told you to give more details, perhaps to provide you with compensation but you came here to ask for advice instead.

So what is making you so reluctant in following the process? I can understand your frustration if you have followed the process and it has been more than a month and they have not contacted you...

hey, thanks for your feedback, all criticisim is welcomed.

In my mind, I am not averse to following a process, but I don’t see a process, I just see a mess, and I am lost. No one has contacted me to ask for additional information. I would be grateful have your opnion on below questions to know what to do.

  1. Some of you now think that I am not eligible for compensation for immediate expenses due to delayed baggage (replacement purchases), I don’t understand why Swiss Customer Service keeps mentioning this compensation to me, even though I never mentioned it. There was a mistake in my original post: Swiss is the one who kept mentioning it.

2 Do you think I should fill out the form regarding the contents of the baggage? another weird thing about their website is I don’t receive any notification in my email, I had to connect to the website to see ""Further action is required regarding your delayed baggage.

https://mybag.aero/baggage/#/pax/swi…yed/manage-bag

I don’t understand why it’s needed as I don’t think there are any other suitcases with my niche Canadian brand that match that color and model.

3 If it’s just to identify my suitcase, because the above information is still not enough for them, I have a few special brand of instant noodles bought from Asia, this should be unique criteria, do you think it’s enough to provide this information?

No one is looking for your bag, no one is managing your case. It will not move forward unless you move it forward.

1. IF you had any expenses you should submit them. You don't so there is nothing to do here.

2. Submit the inventory of the bag - it's the only way the case will move forward. They are waiting for your input.

You can absolutely do nothing here - but then nothing will happen.

Processes are processes and at times they are stupid but for sure, you will not manage to get the people handling the case to follow a special process for you.

What is it that you need to buy as emergency stuff? It's been weeks now, I would assume you either bought those by now or can do without?

Instead of wasting time writing here about why it's stupid to do as asked just don't - will be time much better spent!

Erm, I just checked several of the OP's previous posts going back several years and they all seem to follow the same approach: ask a question; get suggestions; ignore suggestions and ask same question again; get more suggestions; ignore and ask additional questions and so on.

I guess it is not worth the effort to respond...

Thanks, I will submit the inventory then. I haven't done it yet because

1. Their website messages don't seem to be consistent to me: there are 2 messages: 1st is "Good news, we've located your baggage. and they are waiting for it to be shipped, but this message has been there since Jan 10th and no change, the 2nd is "Further action is required regarding your delayed baggage.Please complete the form regarding the contents of your baggage by selecting 'Contents list' from the main menu." I don't think these 2 statuses can coexist.

2. no one from Swissport or Swiss contacted me for any additional information, no automatic email or notification, I only knew the existence of the 2nd message because I connect to the website almost daily. That's why I thought it was some automatic pop-up shit, like their AI determined this form will be requested automatically after 2 weeks, so in reality nobody checked my case. Does my analysis sound logical to you or do you think I am crazy?

Thanks, I didn't buy anything because I'm not sure what will be refunded. It has made my life inconvenient, for example, my only pair of jogging shoes and all my summer clothes are in the luggage, I haven't jogged since I'm back...

You have always been very kind and helpful, so let me give you a little more context to see if you can better understand my reaction: All the messages about "compensation for immediate expenses due to delayed baggage" were in a private chat on Facebook. Each time, Swiss took a while to respond with a different representative, which confused me even more. I initially contacted them just to have a better chance of getting my luggage and never mentioned a refund, and when they replied to me they mentioned the compensation, and according to many of you on the forum (if I understand correctly) it was already too late for me to buy anything to get a refund, especially considering it was my return flight to my country of residence.

This mirrors exactly my frustration dealing with Lufthansa. The information on-line is hopeless and is up-dated very slowly. You need to follow up for anything to occur. My bag turned up after 18 days. I am convinced that had I not made a nuisance of myself it would have gone down as lost -it was baggage handling in Toronto that eventually located it. Since there were a number of Christmas presents inside, I wanted to recover it, not just for the financial value.

The system seems to suffer from being semi-automated, the number of employees has been reduced but it actually needs more humans going round, checking tags etc.

For the airline you are just one of many. Unfortunately you need to wait 21days before reporting the bag as lost - at which time a full inventory is required for compensation by the airline and/or your insurance. If it turns up before then, you can claim for delay compensation when it turns up - any inventory you have provided is to help identification. But you must file the claim, it will not happen automatically.

The conclusion for me - an air tag is a must.

OP - I do not believe Swiss will pay you back runnin shoes and summer clothes unfortunately. When they talk about first necessity it's toiletries and underwear and a change of clothes I would assume. Perhaps a pair of shoes if you travelled in flip flops and here it's -5 and you are not home.

That's just my opinion though, others may think it's ok.

Thanks for sharing your experience, what action do you suggest I take to avoid them labeling it as lost without making any effort?

Just to be sure, the "inventory" you mentioned is this? "Please fill out the form regarding the contents of your baggage by selecting 'Contents List' from the main menu."