Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan - Lost Baggage Help

I'm hoping somebody has some experience with this that they can share.

I just finished a trip that ended with a short QX/AS flight from SEA to PDX. I started off in BKK and flew to DXB then SEA with Emirates. I checked 2 bags and both were checked all the way to PDX. When I got to SEA, I waited to collect my bags to take the through customs. Both bags made it. After clearing, put them on the transfer belt and off I went.

I had a 4 hour layover in SEA but opted to voluntarily separate from the bags and go standby on an earlier shuttle flight. I'd done this many times before with no problems and again I was ensured that the bags would be collected off the belt, they'd see we went standby and they'd lock them up until we showed up.

The next day when I went to get the bags, one wasn't there. They gave me the same line about most bags come in on the next flight. Well too bad it was 1 in the afternoon the next day and they'd had close to 12 shuttle flights since mine was due in. Then I got the no problem you should get it in 24-48 hours.

It has now been 9 days and they have no clue where my bag is. Every time I talked to them they couldn't give me anything new. They contacted EK and at one point they claim EK said they had the bag but couldn't find it? But I wonder why EK would have the bag again since I cleared customs with the bag in SEA?

Does anybody have any experience dealing with AS Central Baggage office in Seattle? Whats the likely hood that they will actually find this bag and I will get it back? If they don't find it, how is compensation paid? Some of the items were very new some were a few years old. How much will they depreciate the older items value?

I'm starting to lose hope that this bag will ever be found. I've been calling constantly and since I work at the airport at PDX I even stopped by every day until the claim was no longer being investigated locally.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Given that you physically handled the bags at SEA, we know that the missing bag is:
1. Lying around at SEA
2. Stolen from SEA
3. Mistakenly sent from SEA to somewhere else

If one call to someone physically at SEA bag office with the request that they spend a minute looking around doesn't get you a result, the bag is most likely stolen or got somehow damaged and tossed.

At that point, you file a claim. Even though this happened on a domestic leg, it was as part of an intl. journey and the claim limits for intl. will apply. Hopefully you either didn't have much of value or have insurance to cover what the carrier won't.

The tickets for the international and the domestic legs were not linked. The domestic was a PDX-ANC-SEA-PDX reward ticket. The international ticket was booked as a roundtrip from SEA. I've done research on reimbursement and found the international and the domestic rates. I've asked the baggage folks which one I'll get if it gets to that point and nobody knows.

It's possible if it is the international rate that I'll get to that limit pretty quick since it was a 3 week trip.

I had a similar situation earlier this year. I was on a multi leg trip from PEK, when I arrived into the US one of my bags wasn't there. I was able to figure out that it was in ICN because someone could see a yellow bag in the system at the airport. Anyway, with someone being able to see my bag and me calling everyday it still took 5.5 weeks fro my bag to make it home. I was pretty sure it would come back even though the odds were against it.
Phone the baggage tracing # and start all the claims, my understanding is that once a claim is started they up the search, at least they did in my case. Good luck!