Damaged Baggage Situation..

Alright, so if you have read my earlier post "Back to US Journey", you might remember that I said that almost all of our bags were damaged (well 5 out 6) when we got back to US. Just to refresh your memory, we came back in United Airlines. The bags didn't come with us in our flight so we had to wait for 1.5 hours for the next flight since our bags were coming in next flight. Once the bags arrived, almost all of them were damaged badly such that we were sure that those bags can't be used again. We filed the complaint for the bags. The lady who took our complaints said that they can't guarantee that any of the bags will be repaired or if they will take responsibility for any damages (since the lady thought that some were manufacturing defects :P). This statement made us mad but it was 1 am and we didn't have the energy to argue with that lady. I told my dad that let's at least file the complaint and then we'll see what can be repaired and what not. We couldn't leave our bags there since they were all full but we came back in 2 weeks and dropped off the bags. The damage luggage agent was very nice. She talked with me on the phone very nicely insuring me that she'll do her best to get the bags repaired and if they can't repair them, they'll negotiate something with us. I was relieved after hearing that :).

It had been two weeks and I still didn't hear from her regarding the status of the bags or anything so got little concerned and called her up. Couldn't get hold of the agent so left a message. She called me back and said that 4 new bags have been bought to replace the 4 damaged big bags and one of the bags will be repaired...so they'll probably ship them out to us once they get them all in (Wooohoooooo!). I was really happy and satisfied to hear that they got us 4 new bags to replace the old ones. I'm very glad that things worked out and now we don't need to worry about our bags.

Advice: If there is any kind of damage, definitely file a complaint. File the complain and see what can be repaired. It is the airline's responsibility to reimburse us, or repair the damage they did to our bags. Worse comes worse, they might say "no" to have anything to do with your bags, but it's worth a try. You might get lucky or unlucky depending on what kind of person you deal with.

Tata for now!!