HELP HELP HELP! Lost baggage Virgin Australia

[hayley]

Hi,

My partner and I are in an absolute tiz at the moment. Our baggage has been lost from our flight from LA to Sydney (we arrived in Syd this morning). Here's what happened.

We boarded our VA flight in LA on time last night but an announcement came over the system advising the passengers that we were experiencing a delay as some delta codeshare passengers had become lost in the terminal and they were unloading their baggage from the cargo hold. We happened to be sitting in the 2nd last row of the plane on the right hand side and had a perfect view of the bags being unloaded. I noticed that 2 of our 3 bags has been unloaded and were sitting out on the platform-thing (?) of the plane. At that point we became concerned and alerted a cabin crew member who brushed us off saying "I'm sure it will be put back on" and then walked off. As we continued to watch, the bags were thrown down to a waiting trolley and driven off with a number of other bags. We then alerted yet another VA staff member who said that he didn't know and walked off, only to come back a few minutes later saying that if it was our bags, then they would be on the next flight to Brisbane and delivered to us. Wouldn't you know it, we get to Sydney, and no bags. We went to baggage services and lodged a claim but feel completely at a loss. We've now called Virgin's office in LAX who have no idea where our bags are. As far as their concerned, they should have arrived in Sydney. We've also called VA baggage service in Sydney but they have no idea either. Does anyone have any suggestions here???
I'm so incredibly cranky that we had raised the issue twice with cabin staff, only to be brushed off. I am concerned that the bags were mistakenly taken off with the Delta customers belongings and incorrectly loaded on to another flight. Where do I go from here? Thank you so much in advance for any advice.

Hayley

 

[OzEire]

Sorry about your situations.

I'm not surprised at the VA FA's response, anything outside the aircraft is of little interest to them. If you had found a good one they might have raised it with the VA agent at LAX, but, it is a big airport with a complex baggage system and I doubt any amount of intervention could have made much of a difference without delaying the flight. I wonder if they would have made a bigger effort for a status pax, or someone in business class? I doubt it, I think they probably would have just made more of an effort to give the impression that they were doing something.

You have lodged the missing bags with VA baggage services - which is about all you can do right now - so leave it with them for 24 hours to sort out... they probably don't know where the bags are right now, my experience with this situation is that the bags need to appear in the wrong place and not be claimed there before they get lodged into the missing system (seems like a pretty chaotic system).

Is Sydney your home port or are you visiting ? This makes a difference. While you are waiting for the call back from VA baggage services, do you have travel insurance ? Dig out your policy and check what you are entitled to. Even if you don't have insurance, if you are away from your home port you might get a small allowance from VA to buy some clothes and toiletries until your bags are found. If you do have insurance you might be able to claim a daily amount until the bags are returned (so long as you can prove to them that they were lost, so keep all the paperwork you get from VA).

You might not hear back from Virgin, ever. So if time passes and you hear nothing, get on the phone and chase them. Like I said, 24 hours is plenty of time to find the bags and give you an estimate on their return. Any longer and I would be calling any and all numbers you can find for any part of VA to get some attention, but there's not much point until you've given them some initial time to try.

If all else fails you might try to get the attention of the VA rep on this board. They might be able to help.

Good luck.

 

[hayley]

Thank you OzEire, Sydney is our home port. So I'm guessing little to no help there. I honestly can not believe how inept VA's baggage system is. It's insane! And yes, we do have travel insurance with our credit card, I'll have to find the paperwork. It sucks that we are probably going to lose so much stuff. We had dropped quite a bit of money at the outlets in Vegas before heading for our flight (mostly on presents for our 12 month old son who was at home in Aus with grandma). Feeling so disappointed we may never see it all again.

 

[Mattg]

Not with VA but my bags have been lost in the United States a number of times. In each case, the airline (AA) had no idea where my bags were when I lodged a claim, but sure enough they did turn up eventually. As OzEire said, give it 24 hours or so then contact Virgin again. It's not common for bags to go missing indefinitely and eventually someone will realise, wherever you bags may be, that they are in the wrong place and try to get them to the right one.

But boy, I can understand your frustration at literally seeing your bags get offloaded then to be brushed off like that.

 

[Justinf]

The cabin crew have no say in what happens to you luggage. There's nothing they could have done.
You did the right thing by reporting it straight away. It is very likely your bags will arrive within 24 to 48 hours in my experience.
Sorry I can't really help.

 

[Spacetravel]

Did you have travel insurance? If not did you book with a credit card that includes travel insurance? You may need to start looking at your options to make a claim.
Most include a clause if its delayed by more then 4-8 hours you get some emergency money then a further amount if its never recovered.

 

[vetrade]

You mentioned that you saw 2 of your 3 bags offloaded. Did your 3rd bag arrive with you? Did you check that the flight details on your bag tags printed at check-in were correct? It's very rare, but not unheard of, for the bag tags to have a wrong flight number or destination city code in which case it would be a lot harder for you to be re-united with them. I know I'm pedantic but I always check the details on the tags before our bags disappear down the conveyor belt.

If your 3rd bag did arrive OK you can be confident that the tags had the correct details, in which case (as others have indicated) it's likely your lost bags will turn up in a day or two.

 

[vetrade]

Maybe before your next flight you could consider investing in some AFF super smart tags for your bags for a bit of extra peace of mind. You can buy them through the travel gear section. I wouldn't leave home without them nowadays!

 

[FlyingFox]

What do the AFF super smart tags do?

 

[vetrade]

What do the AFF super smart tags do?

Read all about them here:

Australian Frequent Flyer Super Smart Tag (Pack of 2) [aff-sst] - $9.95 : The Frequent Flyer Store, Travel Gear for Frequent Flyers

I particularly like the fact you can register your itinerary online so that baggage people scanning the smart tag can track you down.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Hopefully it does turn up in the next few days.
If it does not, make a claim.
In the end, it does leave a bad taste in the mouth, knowing that someone somewhere in the world now has your possessions, and doing what ever with them.
Pity that there were no checks and balances for this.

 

[FlyingFox]

Thanks vetrade. Good luck Hayley!

 

[Homer]

Hayley in case it makes you feel better, VA once lost some of our luggage from LAX to SYD (also our home port) and I wasted time and energy getting stressed and making phone calls and beginning to fill out an insurance claim form and then the bags turned up the next day and all was well. Precise answers around lost baggage seem difficult to come by, but the baggage itself often just takes a bit of time to show up.