Stolen baggage claim denied - BA Gold

Old Aug 4, 2015, 7:58 am
  #106  
 
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how can BA prove it was on the carousel, rather than just scanned nearby and stolen by baggage staff?
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Old Aug 4, 2015, 8:20 am
  #107  
 
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Originally Posted by TabTraveller
Well I guess the point is that if my ski bag gets nicked there is probably around 5k worth of equipment in there. This is the only bag I ever check because it is simply impossible to carry in the cabin. No travel insurance will cover all of this cost. I have about as good insurance as I could find and it has a 500 single item limit and 3k overall. Which means I'd go to my householder insurer for the rest and then I am likely to have to pay increased premiums on my home insurance because I'll be marked as having suffered a theft. All because BA/HAL don't wish to pay for someone to check that the right person has left with the right bag...

I'd absolutely be claiming it in full from BA. I rather suspect a DJ would side with the consumer on this.
Specialist insurance brokers will often be able to negotiate higher levels of cover for people with high value equipment, but I would imagine for the vast majority of ski travellers 3K/500K will be sufficient.

No harm at all in claiming from BA/HAL, although I could only see a long drawn out process there.
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Old Aug 4, 2015, 8:52 am
  #108  
 
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Originally Posted by simons1
Yes, although in my experience it makes little difference to the premium. I had a bag missing/stolen on Oman Air 2 years back, I claimed about 1,600 and the premium went up by about 10.

Surely that is the purpose of insurance though. Why would I spend hours being given the runaround by BA when a single call to my insurer gets the job done immediately.

Armed with the PIR the insurer will claim part of it back from BA anyway, I would imagine there is some settlement methodology in place.
My recollection was that household contents would also ask you to declare any theft claim, so it would filter through there as well. If it only affects travel policies them th at is better but still didn't tackle the per item limits, etc.
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Old Aug 4, 2015, 9:00 am
  #109  
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Originally Posted by stewaran
how can BA prove it was on the carousel, rather than just scanned nearby and stolen by baggage staff?
How can the OP prove he had a 700 jacket taken from the bag?
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Old Aug 4, 2015, 9:06 am
  #110  
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I find it ironic that at NRT there's no check of bag tags at the airport, but the Tokyo airport limo buses are very careful about matching the claim check when they hand the bag back. Plus, Japan is a country that has very few problems with theft.
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Old Aug 4, 2015, 9:16 am
  #111  
 
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Originally Posted by EsherFlyer
My recollection was that household contents would also ask you to declare any theft claim, so it would filter through there as well. If it only affects travel policies them th at is better but still didn't tackle the per item limits, etc.
My policies are on auto renewal - these days insurers share claims information electronically.
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Old Aug 4, 2015, 9:44 am
  #112  
 
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Originally Posted by simons1
My policies are on auto renewal - these days insurers share claims information electronically.
Whether you declare it or they share it behind the scenes is moot. If making a baggage claim pushes up your contents insurance cost for a few years via any means then that would seem to be a bad thing.
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Old Aug 4, 2015, 9:52 am
  #113  
 
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Originally Posted by EsherFlyer
Whether you declare it or they share it behind the scenes is moot. If making a baggage claim pushes up your contents insurance cost for a few years via any means then that would seem to be a bad thing.
Well I can say with certainty that my contents insurance hasn't gone up.

At the end of the day it's the individual's choice whether to claim. If I had lost say 1,500 of belongings I know what I would do.
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Old Aug 4, 2015, 4:42 pm
  #114  
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Originally Posted by golfmad
It's not unreasonable for the insurance companies to want to see a police report for stolen goods. It's always been that way. There are a lot of 'chancers' out there.
For the airlines, much like for the insurance companies, it's about frustrating claims; with the airlines, the frustration of claims is done by not responding and/or by demanding all sorts of elements that may or may not be unreasonable but which are certainly not required under the applicable treaties for irregular baggage handling.

Maybe it is or is not unreasonable to demand that customers jump through additional hoops to get their just due, but these demands for police reports eat up police resources that could be used for other (read: crime-interdiction) purposes than playing desk job jockey for civil claims.

And it's not like most potential baggage-related claims against airlines are even pursued by customers -- a situation which just leads to consumers eating the losses for which the airlines should be paying and the airlines carrying on as usual without really systematically fixing anything other than a system by which to frustrate valid customer claims.

Last edited by GUWonder; Aug 4, 2015 at 4:53 pm
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Old Aug 4, 2015, 4:50 pm
  #115  
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Originally Posted by HIDDY
The only airport I've used here where a check was made to see if your receipt matched the bag tag was at AEP. Last time I arrived there they didn't do it though.
They do these bag receipt cross checks with some frequency at JFK and LGA when coming off a flight and picking up bags landside. I have also seen these checks done at some Latin American and Asian airports. At least at JFK and LGA, AA has been funding many of these checks. BA pays for such checks at some foreign airports, but I've never seen BA do this at LHR.
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Old Aug 4, 2015, 5:16 pm
  #116  
 
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Originally Posted by GUWonder
BA pays for such checks at some foreign airports, but I've never seen BA do this at LHR.
That seems entirely reasonable to me where there is not a noticeable problem, as long as BA make payments when there something goes awry due to not making those checks.

If it does become a problem somewhere then having the same people watching luggage collections for a few days would soon help them recognise:
  • Organised groups looping through each day and collecting a random bag;
  • GGL flyers.
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