Hi all, we're currently in Langkawi, Malaysia and have had a terrible experience with our luggage and am hoping someone can give some insight. We flew AA from STX-SJU then were booked on AA from SJU-JFK but the flight was delayed so much that it would have caused us to miss our connecting flight so AA rebooked us onto B6 from SJU-JFK (we know our bags made it as far as JFK, or believe so as we were told we couldn't take the Jetblue flight until our bags had been transferred.) There we connected to CX JFK-HKG-KUL and found our bags didn't make it and at the time no one could locate them, after filing a report we had to leave to make our AK flight KUL-LKW.

Long story short, they arrived three days later and upon receipt of our bags noticed that one (brand new bag, first trip) had they outside pocket ripped open and zipper broken, and inside someone had taken mini bottles of rum, a full size bottle of rum (yes we were still within duty free allowances), a razor, my MSR pack towel, ripped open birthday card envelopes but not touched wrapped presents (we believe looking for cash), and a couple other small bits and bobs. They'd also taken all of our clothes etc. in the bags and messed it up as much as seemingly possible which leads us to believe it wasn't customs, at least I've never seen customs so disrespectful as to trash your things.

Now the issues becomes how do we deal with this? Trip insurance to replace everything is easy enough but I want blood... everything that was taken or damaged was for family or friends we haven't seen in years and is now gone. Because we didn't receive our bags at the airport we can't even file a claim with AA as far as I know. Looking for any insight before I go rip the head off some ungrateful, ignorant little thief.

(joking, but just barely)