Slightly off topic but I find it bizarre that airlines deliver the same old BS line about you cannot travel without your bags when in fact thousands of bags miss flights and then the bags usually catch up with their owners later by coming on another flight and yet according to the logic of their argument you would have to fly back to where your bags missed the connection or missed the flight in the first place (or were misrouted) to then travel with them on the same flight. What is that all about? I do not recall anyone being off loaded because it was discovered that their bag had not been loaded come departure time which is in effect the same experience as has been recounted above in that they could not travel on the flight as their bags were not on board. Perhaps all such delayed baggage travel on special flights or cargo flights which have no passengers on board?