Originally Posted by
CPMaverick
Not at all! This is common practice in the industry. In fact, UA at LAX offered me a replacement bag when they destroyed my Briggs and Riley (it was a cheap POS and I declined, I was looking for some compensation since I know B&R has free repair).
Those are the bags they offer to help someone for the short term. They aren't intended to be total compensation for the damage except to provide you something to repack your clothes.
The airlines do not pay replacement cost. Compensation is based on depreciated value. For example, Samsonite sells hard side cases for under $300. So I see no reason to change my opinion that the $100 for a used and "cheap, well-traveled hard sided case" was reasonable. Obviously some of you disagree.
So since B&R offers free repair why should you need further compensation? The purpose of compensation is that you suffered a loss. In the B&R example you suffered no loss.