I had a bmi redemption flight in C on AC/LH/SAS, SEA-YYC-FRA-CPH last Fri/Sat. My luggage went missing somewhere along the way (my suspicion is that it didn't make the YYC-FRA flight as SEA-YYC was substantially delayed and I barely made the connection myself). At CPH they gave me 1000DKK (~€130) for immediate essentials etc.

By the next morning, they had found my bag, but as it wouldn't arrive in CPH by the time of my onward flight (on another carrier/ticket), they said they'd forward it on to TLL. For the next few days they kept telling me that it would arrive that day. Finally I discovered that it had gone missing again, somewhere between CPH and TLL. (CPH gave me details of the exact flight they insist it went on; TLL insist it never arrived). 3 days on from reopening the file, they still haven't found it (having gone through the contents of every similar bag currently in CPH over the phone to me to see if any of them were mine).

They then directed me to LH customer relations for questions on compensation etc., but the phone number they gave me was actually a fax, and any other number I can find anywhere seems to be permanently busy.

From what I've read here, LH policy is that I can claim up to 1000XDR, but other than underwear and toiletries, everything else is only reimbursed at 50%? That seems a little odd to me, but I also notice that some people have stories of getting more than that, and that LH is one of the best for this sort of thing. Is there any special trick to getting better than 50% reimbursement?

In a case like this where the luggage is still delayed, but presumably becoming increasingly unlikely to ever be found, how many things can I replace when? For example, I had 5 shirts in my luggage - I could probably make do with 2 in the short term if my luggage is going to turn up, so do I have to wait for them to eventually declare it completely lost before replacing all of them?

Also, how connected do the items I'm claiming for need to be to what was in my luggage? It would be almost impossible to get exact replacements for most of the contents, and I don't really know how much a lot of the things originally cost me (thankfully LH don't seem to want original receipts, just for the replacements) so is any reasonably priced shirt an acceptable replacement?

And on electronic equipments, does their non-coverage extend to things like chargers and adaptors? I never check in things like laptops and cameras themselves, but various accessories were there and now I've lost, for example, the recharger for my Japanese camera, which is non-trivial to replace.

Thanks for any advice or pointers.