Originally Posted by
LTN Phobia
If he does have insurance (does he have it? You never did say if he had it or not, merely that he 'doesn't want it'), then I suggest taking the pragmatic view and claim on the insurance. A lot of the time the insurance company will then pursue the carrier in question, so your friend gets what he wants in all respects.
As
Dave Noble pointed out as an issue - the insurance comes with no claim bonus. So touching it for petty charges is an unwise thing to do.
Having said that, I am still a bit surprised that QF declined to pay anything, as long as all the facts of the case have been presented to us and there is no factor involved that complicates the matter, for instance his stuff that he needed was in one of your bags that did not turn up on time, or that his bags were all tagged to your, etc.
It wasn't ... but even if it was, how would QF know? My bags were checked under my name, his under his.
For the other factors, I don't fly QF enough anymore to judge if they see it differently. Maybe, as we flew on to MEL and PER, they did not see it as the 'destination'. But even if they did, this is not what they wrote. All that QF CS wrote is that they "cannot do more than apologize". Which is of course a very, very terse explanation.