I've mentioned on here that 95% of my travel is international and this very situation happened to me last summer.

I was connecting via both AMS/ATL, I had approximately 2 hours in AMS for my bags to make the flight. I, of course, received priority tags at check in.

In Atlanta, a very large number of passengers - I would estimate between 30 and 40 - did not receive their luggage and were told that our bags were not loaded as the flight was overweight due to cargo. The guy in front of me had diamond tags and I recognized him from the business cabin. He went absolutely ballistic.

As an aside, Delta had 2 workers and one computer (well there were 2 computers but one of them was broken) for baggage stuff at their international arrivals in Atlanta and it was pretty low-level service, the people working there weren’t really helpful at all and only seemed to frustrate already antagonized passengers. Several flights arrived at once and the line was untenable.

I received my bags a full 3 days later and both of my suitcases had exceptional damage; they looked like they had been through war. Delta flat out replaced one of them and had the other sent out and repaired. I was granted $50 / day in expenses (thus $150) but still would have certainly preferred to have my luggage.

I was so frustrated that my bags were "bumped" in lieu of cargo that I contacted the D.O.T. and encouraged them to impose fines on airlines which bump passenger’s bags for paying cargo. I eventually received a terse response from KLM which stated that they saw that Delta had paid me for my expenses and why am I complaining, if I have any unreimbursed expenses to refile them. They did not address any of my questions (aka why are bags with priority tags bumped when flights are overweight?) whatsoever.

And, aside from the clothes I bought, I received no answers nor additional compensation from KLM nor Delta. Good luck with your claim. I have had my bags delayed several times and always received compensation for my expenses (once for a suit) in a timely manner. I’ve never had them question my expenses but never really turned in an extravagant bill, mostly I picked up stuff at TJ Maxx/Marshall’s. Don’t think you can expect much more, unfortunately.