Originally Posted by
gobluetwo
Probably depends on the airline. Cathay, Singapore, Asiana and others might be much better than the Chinese (to generalize) or smaller or budget carriers in the region.
SQ is the king of bag compensation in my opinion.
Couple of years ago, SQ damaged my bag and gave me a new one on the spot. 3 minutes, no dispute. I had quit buying expensive luggage from all the damage over the years, so the bag they gave me was better than the bag they ruined. The only "nice" bag I had was a water buffalo leather garment bag - almost indestructible. Put over a million flight miles on it. Wish I could find another...
Years ago, when I was doing the SFO-SIN R/T 15 times a year, there were competing flights via HKG on both CX and SQ. I would take the Cathay flight from SFO-HKG. CX left an hour before SQ but arrived later because it was an airbus instead of a 747, but it gave elite qualifying AA miles. I could connect to the SQ flight HKG - SIN, but it was only a "legal" connection by one minute. Almost every trip, I would make the connection but my bags wouldn't (if I didn't make it, there was another flight an hour later). When my bags didn't arrive, SQ had a policy to pay $100 (sing$ - about us$70 at that time) in cash for the "inconvenience" then they would clear my bags through customs and deliver to my hotel when they arrived on the next flight. Usually my bags were at my hotel room door less than hour after I checked in. I would have considered paying for that kind of delivery service, but they paid me!