It is very hard to be "made whole" on baggage replacement these days.

I had a very good roll-aboard (forget now whether it was Hartmann or Briggs and Reilly) with a lifetime repair warranty. It was several years old but, with the repair warranty, I could have kept it in service indefinitely.

The manufacturer's warranty, however, did not cover Delta grinding off one side of the bag (looked as if it had been dragged behind the luggage cart from one end of the airport to the other). The damage was significant enough that some of the contents of the bag has been similarly abraded.

Delta baggage claim folks give me a replacement to get home and told me to go out and purchase a suitable replacement, with the assurance that Delta would reimburse me.

When I filed for reimbursement, I was asked why I had not sent the bag to Delta for repair. Of course, the bag was already with Delta and was beyond repair.

Then the corporate folks started to nickle and dime me. I have seen luggage at Costco that was better than what Delta was willing to pay for.

I persisted and prevailed in the end.

But, thanks to COVID, my replacement Briggs and Reilly is still in the original packaging, unused.

What this does point out (reinforcing previous experience and perceptions), is that the baggage claim folks at the airport (the folks on the front line) have a better concept of what constitutes good customer service than do the bureaucrats at corporate headquarters. Unfortunately, as one of the others posting here pointed out, the good local folks sometimes have too high confidence in what the bureaucrats will do on behalf of the customer.