I once dealt with UA's "outsourced" baggage resolution. This was for a vacation to Tahoe in February. They had no idea where my bag was. They weren't sure if it was at IAH, SFO, or RNO. They did offer me a customer appreciation cert for $100 on the first phone call. But I ended up having to spend the whole day looking for my bags by calling the airline, the airports, etc. I had resigned myself to losing all of my snowboarding gear. And of course, I got a call at 5am (over 24 hours later) saying they had found my luggage.

So I guess it's good if you're 1K, but if you're not, then hello ICC!