Hi guys,

I need some guidance on my latest snafue with United. Long story short - I want to know if United has a limit on compensation for business class travelers due to cancelled flights and lost baggage which resulted in significant interim expenses? My fiasco involved a missed weekend in Paris due to a cancelled flight (mechanical issues), lost bags for 4 days, and having to buy business attire due to my bags not arriving in time for my meetings.

Summary of my ordeal:
- My wife and I had a weekend planned in Paris (Take off Friday, land on Saturday morning - stay through Sunday night - then depart to Copenhagen for business meetings on Monday - Wednesday).
- Our SFO to EWR flight was cancelled due to mechanical issues. The next flight out from SFO wasn't until 6 hours later, so we missed our connection from EWR to CDG (Paris). The next flight to Paris from EWR was the next day. Thus we landed in Paris Sunday - missing our entire weekend in Paris - including an expensive hotel for Saturday night. To make matters better, we landed in Paris to find out our bags did NOT arrive and were never transferred to the plane - they were still in EWR. I was told they would not arrive until Monday morning. Too bad we were booked on a flight from Paris to Copenhagen Sunday night - I had business meetings that week in Copenhagen that I could not miss (and the entire reason for this trip - it was a business trip first and foremost).
- Thus, spent pretty much ALL of Sunday in Paris (our only hours in the city) shopping for two suits for my meetings, shoes, casual wear (we only had the clothes we were wearing on the plane), and formal wear for my wife for a business dinner she needed to attend. Since we didn't have a ton of time, we just went to the most convenient place we could find - Hugo boss - admittedly not the cheapest, but we only had 6 hours to get everything done - I did not have time to shop for the best deal. The Suits and shoes were a bulk of the expense, but everything in total added up to $6,000 (we also had to buy new luggage since we had no way to transport the suits and clothes we bought! ARGH!).
- Bags finally arrive in Copenhagen on Thursday at our hotel.

I file a claim the week I get back with all receipts for purchases, and detailed explanation of what happened and how we were inconvenienced. I called United Baggage as well (many times during this process) - they told me that since we flew business class, there was no limit to the amount we could get reimbursed - but we had to keep all receipts, which we did.

I just received a response from United, saying that as stated in their "Contract of Carriage", maximum liability for each passenger for interinational flights is $1,900 so the maximum "settlement" amount for two people is $3,800 for "full and final settlement of your claim for ticketed passengers".

Is this correct? I looked at United's contract of carriage (updated July 2019) and don't see any reference to any $1,900 limit. If this is true, I am shocked - No one, in my many many calls to United 1k baggage desk and at the airport mentioned any such limit. https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly...-carriage.html