All I can say is "good luck" if your experience is anything like mine with Air New Zealand.

We flew LAX to the Cook Islands with a one-stop in Tahiti. We arrived Sunday morning at 5AM and ANZ advised me that they'd off-loaded my bag by mistake in Tahiti. All I had were the clothes I was wearing.

They said they'd have my bag to me WEDNESDAY.

Only after I asked about it, they offered NZ$100 (about US$55) for "incidentals" until my bag arrived in FOUR days. From their attitude, they could've given a rip. US$55 doesn't go very far in buying clothes, etc. on a south-sea island (heck, sunscreen was US$12).

My bag eventually arrived on THURSDAY evening! We departed Saturday evening back to LAX.

I later learned that they could have routed the bag from Tahiti to NZ and back to the Cook Islands and I would have had the bag in a day. It seemed like they just didn't care.